In sum, the ancient worthies, each in their own way, calmly cultivated practice gradually, from the fundamental. That being said, if you investigate ancient examples and so on at this juncture, when some commotion occurs in the chest with a sense of joy, then you flounder around and faculties for the Way are naturally lost. It’s as if one were intending to teach various arts and crafts to children, and wound up smacking them around and beating them to death.
This is a most essential point for practitioners. If you violate this strict regulation, you are no colleague of mine.
As The Undying Lamp of Zen illustrates, the matter of timing underlies systematic organization of Buddhist scriptures in terms of phases of personal development and responsive education. The understanding of time in terms of mental states and experiences also explains the Zen emphasis on individual prescription for maximum efficiency of teachings and practices. For this reason, Torei’s methodology includes extensive outreach and accommodation as well as intensive rigor and exclusion. This treatise therefore includes a wide range of Zen Buddhist teaching, from the most open and accessible to the most arcane and esoteric, enabling everyone from the absolute beginner to the advanced practitioner to benefit from its encouragement and instruction.
1. Shumon mujinito ron. Shumon is a word traditionally used for Zen schools; it derives from a term in the Lankavatara-sutra, one of the scriptural sources of Zen, distinguishing two forms of communication and understanding: through the source (shu) and through explanation (setsu). Mujin means “endless,” “inexhaustible,” and so on; here, used to qualify the “lamp” of Zen, undying is chosen in respect to the testamentary nature of the work, as something transcending the author’s anticipated untimely death, and his duty to pass on the light of Zen.
PREFACE
If you want to read this treatise, do so from start to finish, thoroughly penetrating each point. Don’t just pick out a saying or a chapter that conforms to your own liking and consider that right.
First, distinguish the source of our school, which has its special significance.
Next, know about faith and practice.
Third, distinguish the mistakes of small knowledge and small views.
Fourth, it is necessary to know that seeing nature really and truly is all in great doubt and great faith, and no intellectual discrimination is applicable—when the time comes, it occurs naturally. This realm is the root of the substance of the whole treatise. The phenomenon of seeing nature is easy to clarify but difficult to use thoroughly in both action and repose, in both adverse and favorable circumstances. Please focus even more intently when you get here, for otherwise the verbal teachings of the Buddhas and Masters will all come down to mere words and won’t be real, living methods. When you have truly developed a foothold, continuously mindful, present in all situations, only then can you penetrate sayings.
Fifth, always test everyday application, valuing only continuity of right mindfulness. Application of practice varies in depth and refinement; these distinctions are most difficult to discern. To find out about them, carefully examine the sayings of Buddhas and Masters; you absolutely have to think of their subtle points. This is called the eye that penetrates barriers.
Sixth, after having gotten through the locks of the Buddhas and Masters one by one, deeply believe there is an experience beyond Buddhas and Masters, and cultivate more and more, practice more and more, don’t even think of retreat. This matter is by no means easy. Just look into reality in yourself; search into the impenetrable stories of the ancients over and over—the essential message transmitted by the Zen masters lies hidden herein. Even so, if not for the training of an enlightened teacher, how can you gain any results?
Seventh, depending on the depth of insight and the degree of expertise in application, there are enormous differences in the power and function released. This is the reason why people with the same views and the same practices, now as of old, have differences in their virtues.
Eighth, what is received from the teacher, inspiring gratitude for the teaching, is something you should not turn your back on, even at the expense of your life. When you include gratitude for the achievements of successive generations of Zen masters, each one equal, no amount of effort is adequate to requite it. Only by producing one or two genuine successors can you requite any of that debt.
Ninth, whether concealed in a forest or concealed in a city, in all events and all places, just consider development of primary importance; don’t be pulled by confusing focus on things of the world, but regard the ancients’ models of attentiveness.
Tenth, “circulation” means the whole process of cultivation and practice. At first you develop determination based on this, then cultivate practice based on this, seek the subtleties of differentiation based on this, make a life beyond convention based on this, grip the claws and fangs of the cave of the teaching, and wear the miraculous life-taking talisman.
With unobstructed, fluid, independent spiritual capacities you enter into the coarse as well as the fine, into the real as well as the conventional, to produce one or two genuine successors, to create a perpetual lamp lighting the world. The superabundance of light diffuses to everyone, bringing benefit without end, making all forms of life your dwelling place lifetime after lifetime, generation after generation, independently liberated, freely bestowing benefit.
All of this is produced by repeated training and refinement of this subtlety beyond convention, cultivated after realization. Only with such faith and resolution, such development and maturation, can you be called a Buddhist.
After my perception was fully developed, I had not yet mastered the ancients’ subtleties of differentiation, so I stayed in seclusion for more than one hundred days of intense cultivation.
A sense of shame and determination penetrated my bones and marrow. Though I’d attained my aim, because I hadn’t taken care of my physical health and had overexerted my mind, my internal organs were all stressed, resulting in serious illness.
Subsequently, though I relaxed to take care of this, it was by no means easy to cure. I was subjected to mischief from outside, or troubled by worldly relations, and suffered the sickbed three times; once I’d get well, I’d fall sick again. This went on for three years. The doctors gave up on me, telling me that even if I recovered from this illness for the time being, I couldn’t have more than three or four years left to live.
At this point I reflected that my life was not worth regretting. I only lamented the fact that I had not yet fulfilled my original vow to help myself and help others, and had gone through all this hardship in vain.
Finally I emulated Canonical Master Seng Zhao,1 who wrote a treatise as he was awaiting execution, and hurriedly set forth this exposition. Sitting on a cushion day and night with writing materials by my side, I wrote down what came to me, completing a manuscript in only thirty days. I call it “Discourse on the Undying Lamp of Zen.” This is based on the sense of one lamp imparting its flame to hundreds and thousands of lamps, in an undying succession of lights.
After this I sat and reclined at ease, leaving my life to fate. Then I felt the illness getting lighter and lighter day by day. After another half year, I knew in myself that I could survive.
For this reason I reconsidered—had my illness been terminal and had I presented this treatise to my old teacher [Hakuin], I would have asked that he make any useful points of enduring encouragement for later people, and if it had nothing useful in it I’d consign it to the fire. Now that I had been able to get over this illness, with the living person present what would be the use of dead complications?
At this point I was going to burn my treatise, but before I had done so my old teacher personally sent me a letter, and I went back to see him. As we spoke in private, I mentioned this treatise and eventually read it to the old teacher. He said it could be a help to younger students, and firmly forbade me to burn it.
This being so, I nevertheless kept it stored away for a long time. Now, due to th
e urgent request of believers, I cannot but permit it to be copied.
However, writings and sayings are a basis of liberation and a basis of bondage too. If given to the wrong person, or at the wrong time, even ghee turns to poison. I beg you to reflect deeply upon this and not let this treatise be read by the wrong people or at the wrong time. If you violate this strict rule, you are no comrade of mine, ever. Especially since I have been sick a lot and unable to edit and correct the manuscript, how could this text be considered definitive? It will only be suitable as a definitive text after I’ve had a chance to recheck it sometime.
TOREI ENJI, 1751
1. Seng Zhao (374–414) was a disciple of the famous translator Kumarajiva. See The Blue Cliff Record, case 40.
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THE SOURCE OF ZEN
When the Great Enlightened World-Honored One was first born, he walked seven steps in all directions, pointed to the sky with one hand and pointed to the earth with the other hand, and said with the roar of a lion, “In the heavens above and on earth below, only I am honored.” Tsk! He wound up revealing an experience. Yunmen said, “If I had seen him at that time, I would have killed him with one stroke of my cane and fed his flesh to the dogs, so that the world might be at peace.”
Ying-an brought this up and said:
This is a speck of poison brought down at birth; Yunmen is affected by it, so he knows what it comes down to and brings it up and uses it appropriately. If this were all there was to it, Buddha’s teaching would have died out; so he wound up demonstrating a model of it—leaving home to practice austerities, then going into the Himalaya Mountains and sitting straight for six years, then suddenly realizing great enlightenment one night, whereupon he exclaimed, “How wonderful! All living beings have inherent in them the knowledge and virtues of those who arrive at reality!”
It is also said that once the Buddha attained enlightenment he contemplated the universe and saw that the plants, trees, and lands all attain buddhahood. True enough, but what a pity! The principles he realized and the states he experienced, though not within the reach of language, were provisionally collected—this is called the Avatamsaka-sutra. The fundamental cycle of teaching, the discourses of the Buddha’s whole lifetime, all repose therein. Only those of superior faculties can understand it, while the mediocre and lesser are not up to it. This is why Buddha taught the four truths at the Deer Park, and next he explained the twelve causes and conditions and the six perfections.1 These are called the three vehicles.
Because of doctrinal imbalance and inferiority of aspiration and practice, Buddha also expounded teaching with balancing reprobation to break through this limitation, comparing the two vehicles to mangy foxes.2 The intention was to get students of the canon to change their attitudes to universality and take to the Fundamental Vehicle. Thus there is a Great Vehicle with distinguishing doctrine; when those in the two vehicles hear it, they lose their will, while bodhisattvas go ahead and find out its meaning. Therefore the Sutra of Vimalakirti says, “When all the disciples hear this teaching of inconceivable liberation, the sound of their wail will shake the universe. All bodhisattvas will joyfully accept this teaching.”
Later, Buddha repeatedly expounded the teaching of insight, the purifying principle of emptiness in which the two vehicles and three vehicles, higher and lower, are mixed. This is what is referred to as leading from small emptiness into great emptiness, breaking down false emptiness to attain true emptiness.3
After many years like this, when the time came and the effect ripened, Buddha abruptly articulated the complete all-at-once teaching of the characteristics of reality. He simply doused them with foul water, and the three vehicles and five natures equally entered into the One Vehicle of Buddhahood.4 But even so, they entered by faith, not their own knowledge, so they received predictions for the future and were not said to be Buddhas immediately. He just wanted them to have the same faith and practice as the Avatamsaka-sutra and the same realization and penetration as the Nirvana-sutra.5
Tremendous! Buddha’s teaching is very deep, hard to fully comprehend. The teacher is the Tamer of Humanity with Ten Powers, the students are savants and sages, so how could the teachings be superficial! His inductive guidance was also subtle, so every individual realized unaffected true nature; each one was stabilized in acceptance of reality without regression.
This being so, even having done all this, he nevertheless also had something beyond. At the very end, one day at an assembly on Spirit Mountain he held up a flower to the congregation. No one in the immense crowd knew what to make of this, except the reverend Kasyapa, who broke out in a smile. The Buddha said, “I have the treasury of the eye of truth, the subtle mind of nirvana, the formless teaching of reality; I entrust this to Elder Kasyapa.”
This is why our school has a distinct life. The special transmission outside of doctrine didn’t come about arbitrarily.
Brahma went to Spirit Mountain, presented a gold flower to Buddha, then sacrificed his body to be a chair, pleading that Buddha expound the truth to the multitudes. Buddha sat on the seat and held up the flower; no one, people or deities, knew what to make of this. There was a golden-faced ascetic who alone broke into a smile. The World-Honored One said, “I have this treasury of the eye of truth, which I entrust to Elder Kasyapa. Keep it well.”
Later Ananda asked Reverend Kasyapa, “Besides the golden-sleeved robe the Buddha bequeathed to you, what did he transmit?” Kasyapa called to Ananda; Ananda immediately responded. Kasyapa said, “Take down the flagpole at the entrance.” At these words Ananda was greatly enlightened.6
From then on it was transmitted successively, third to Sonavasa, fourth to Upagupta, fifth Tirthika, sixth Micchaka, seventh Vasumitra, eighth Buddhanandi, ninth Punyamitra, tenth Venerable Parsva. Next was Punyayasas, next Asvaghosa, next Kapimala, next the mahasattva Nagarjuna, next Kanadeva, next Rahulata, next Sanghanandi, next Jayasata, next Kumarata, twentieth Jayata, next Vasubandhu, next Venerable Manora, next Haklena. The twenty-fourth, Sinha, transmitted the eye of truth to Vaisasita, and the robe of faith and verse of teaching were even fresher after the firewood had burned out.7 Next was Punyamitra, next Prajnatara, and with the twenty-eighth transmission it reached Bodhidharma, who made his way to China, and simply passed on the seal of the enlightened mind, showing this manner of a wearer of the patchwork robe for nine years on Few Houses Peak of Mount Song.
The second patriarch, Great Teacher Ke, bowed three times and stood in place. At first he cut off his arm and awakened; later he got the marrow and received the robe.8
The third patriarch was named Sengcan. The fourth patriarch was named Daoxin. Coming to the fifth patriarch, Hongren, southern and northern schools divided sudden and gradual. The sixth generation to transmit the robe was Huineng, who was capable of enlightened work by virtue of wisdom, originally illiterate and still not understanding “Buddhism.”9
On Nanyue there was Huairang; at Qingyuan there was Xingsi: From Jiangxi and Hunan their descendants filled the land.10 The golden rooster’s single grain of millet, no separate road in China; the colt that was sent forth trampled everyone on earth to death.11 Master Baizhang made a representation then set it aside, and he was deafened for three days. Huangbo, hearing of this, stuck out his tongue.12 Jiangxi had established the way of the school; Linji was the Vajra King, applying illumination and function at the same time; who would have known the true eye of the teaching would perish in a blind ass?13 Xinghua’s pinch of incense worked hard to protect his posterity.14 Nanyuan’s patience under the cane didn’t defer to his teacher when it was time to act.15 Fengxue’s cat was fierce, brought up to get rid of vermin.16 The method of security up in a tree was not to be granted to a brother-in-law.17 What was the right thing to say? Shoushan abruptly left. Fenyang, the lion of the West River, picked up a cane and chased Ciming, whose attainment was beyond ordinary sense, as he stuck his thigh with an awl to continue the way of the school.18
Yangqi’s thorn-ball, only Baiyun took up and
held.19 The Yellow Crane Pavilion with one punch, Parrot Island with one kick, more spirited than spirited, stylish among the stylish, once Master Yan bit through, a hundred flavors were all there.20 Breaking out in a sweat all over, he established the way of East Mountain on a grand scale.21 Yuanwu watched his step, and he alone annihilated our school.22 Huqiu saved some money but still had claws and fangs besides.23 With Ying-an’s hammer to the back of the brain, happily a healthy pulse came through.24 Mi-an’s broken bowl of sand slept in peace at Miaoxi; the robe of transmission wound up at Songyuan.25 With black beans on the right road, Yun-an’s capacity to take away the robe was handed right to Xutang.26
I bow my head to Master Daio, first patriarch of the Eastern Sea [Japan]. He journeyed twice, and the proliferation of his progeny was foretold. The razorlike sword of Murasakino, sharpened for twenty years, cut off the hands and feet of Buddhas and Patriarchs, then was taken by Kanzan, who declared the oak tree to have a thief’s potential.27 Dealing solely with the transcendental, he refined it for thirty autumns and found one individual, Juo.28 Muin’s stability was a great eye for the whole world; he managed to snatch the jet-black dragon’s pearl.29 Nippo illuminated past and present; the way of his school reached Giten.30 The teaching was lofty and its operation even stricter. The apricot of Mount Heng bore poison fruit; intense effort was made to master the two marvels; black beans were mixed with an accurate eye to irritate the intestines of four heirs.31
Toyo’s natural capacity, with an inexhaustible treasury of icy medicinal fruit, blew in the springtime of Taiga, with the fragrances of a hundred flowers coming on in clouds; his teaching methods were uncompromisingly strict, while his bones of vows protected his progeny.32
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