Song of Precious Mirror Samadhi

Saturday, 24 November 2007

by Ch'an Master Tung-shan Liang-chieh

The dharma of thusness is intimately transmitted by buddhas and ancestors.

Now you have it; preserve it well.

A silver bowl filled with snow, a heron hidden in the moon.

Taken as similar, they are not the same; not distinguished, their places are known.

The meaning does not reside in the words, but a pivotal moment brings it forth.

Move and you are trapped, miss and you fall into doubt and vacillation.

Turning away and touching are both wrong, for it is like a massive fire.

Just to portray it in literary form is to stain it with defilement.

In darkest night it is perfectly clear; in the light of dawn it is hidden.

It is a standard for all things; its use removes all suffering.

Although it is not constructed, it is not beyond words.

Like facing a precious mirror; form and reflection behold each other.

You are not it, but in truth it is you.

Like a newborn child, it is fully endowed with five aspects:

No going, no coming, no arising, no abiding;

P'o-p'o han-han - is anything said or not?

In the end it says nothing, for the words are not yet right.

In the hexagram "double fire," when main and subsidiary lines are transposed,

Piled up they become three; the permutations make five.

Like the taste of the five-flavored herb, like the five-pronged vajra.

Wondrously embraced within the complete, drumming and singing begin together.

Penetrate the source and travel the pathways, embrace the territory and treasure the roads.

You would do well to respect this; do not neglect it.

Natural and wondrous, it is not a matter of delusion or enlightenment.

Within causes and conditions, time and season, it is serene and illuminating.

So minute it enters where there is no gap, so vast it transcends dimension.

A hairsbreadth's deviation, and you are out tune.

Now there are sudden and gradual, in which teachings and approaches arise.

With teachings and approaches distinguished, each has its standard.

Whether teachings and approaches are mastered or not, reality constantly flows.

Outside still and inside trembling, like tethered colts or cowering rats.

The ancient sages grieved for them, and offered them the dharma.

Led by their inverted views, they take black for white.

When inverted thinking stops, the affirming mind naturally accords.

If you want to follow in the ancient tracks, please observe the sages of the past.

One on the verge of realizing the Buddha Way contemplated a tree for ten kalpas.

Like a battle-scarred tiger, like a horse with shanks gone grey.

Because some are vulgar, jeweled tables and ornate robes.

Because others are wide-eyed, cats and white oxen.

With his archer's skill, Yi hit the mark at a hundred paces.

But when arrows meet head-on, how could it be a matter of skill?

The wooden man starts to sing, the stone woman gets up dancing.

It is not reached by feelings or consciousness, how could it involve deliberation?

Ministers serve their lords, children obey their parents.

Not obeying is not filial, failure to serve is no help.

With practice hidden, function secretly, like a fool, like an idiot.

Just to continue in this way is called the host within the host.

About Tung-shan Liang-chieh

This poem is known as Precious Mirror Samâdhi (Japanese: Hõkyõ Zammai, Chinese: 寶鏡三昧、宝鏡三昧), composed by Ch'an Master Tung-shan Liang-chieh (Pinyin: Dongshan Liangjia, Japanese: Tõzan Ryõkai).

Tung-shan Liang-chieh (807-869) is the founder of the Ts'ao-tung (Soto) School of Zen Buddhism. He was a contemporary of Lin-chi I-hsüan (Rinzai Gigen, d.866). Tung-shan Liang-chieh is also known as Wu-pen Ta-shih (Gohon Daishi, 悟本大師). In Japanese, his name (Tung-shan) is pronounced either as Tõzan or as Tõsan.

"Tõsan Ryõkai practiced first under Nansen and Isan, but it was from the master Ungan Donjõ that he finally received the Seal. His manner of instructing and leading his disciples was mild, without stick or shout. In silent introspection they were to seek the enlightenment which must manifest itself in the activities of daily life."

(The Development of Chinese Zen After the Sixth Patriarch 25)

"While Tung-shan Liang-chih was still a boy a Vinaya teacher made him study the Hridaya Sûtra, and tried to explain the sentence, 'There is no eye, no nose, . . .' But Liang-chih surveyed his teacher scrutinizingly with his eye, and then touched his own body with his hand, and finally said, 'You have a pair of eyes, and the other sense-organs, and I am also provided with them. Why does the Buddha tell us that there are no such things?' The Vinaya teacher was surprised at his question and told him: 'I am not capable of being your teacher. You be ordained by a Zen master, for you will some day be a great teacher of the Mahâyâna.' "

(Essays in Zen Buddhism - Third Series 237-8)

"Yun-mên asked Tung-shan: 'Whence do you come?' 'From Chia-tu.' 'Where did you pass the summer session?' 'At Pao-tzu, in Hu-nan.' 'When did you come here?' 'August the twenty-fifth.' Yun-mên concluded, 'I release you from thirty blows [though you rightly deserve them].'

On Tung-shan's interview with Mên, Tai-hui comments:

How simple-hearted Tung-shan was! He answered the master straightforwardly, and so it was natural for him to reflect, 'What fault did I commit for which I was to be given thirty blows when I replied as truthfully as I could?' The day following he appeared again before the master and asked, 'Yesterday you were pleased to release me from thirty blows, but I fail to realize my own fault?' Said Yun-mên, 'Oh you rice-bag, this is the way you wander from the West of the river to the south of the Lake!' This remark all of a sudden opened Tung-shan's eye, and yet he had nothing to communicate, nothing to reason about. He simply bowed, and said, 'After this I shall build my little hut where there is no human habitation; not a grain of rice will be kept in my pantry, not a stalk of vegetable will be growing on my farm; and yet I will abundantly treat all the visitors to my hermitage from all parts of the world; and I will even draw off all the nails and screws [that are holding them to a stake]; I will make them part with their greasy hats and ill-smelling clothes, so that they are thoroughly cleansed of dirt and become worthy monks.' Yun-mên smiled and said, 'What a large mouth you have for a body no larger than a coconut!' "

(Essays in Zen Buddhism - Second Series 28)

"While scholars of the Avatamsaka School were making use of the intuitions of Zen in their own way, the Zen masters were drawn towards the philosophy of Indentity and Interpenetration advocated by the Avatamsaka, and attempted to incorporate it into their own discourses. For instance, Shih-t'ou in his 'Ode on Identity' depicts the mutuality of Light and Dark as restricting each other and at the same time being fused in each other; Tung-shan in his metrical composition called 'Sacred Mirror Samadhi' discourses on the mutuality of P'ien, 'one-sided', and Chêng, 'correct', much to the same effect as Shih-t'ou in his Ode, for both Shih-t'ou and Tung-shan belong to the school of Hsing-szu known as the Ts'ao-tung branch of Zen Buddhism. This idea of Mutuality and Indentity is no doubt derived from Avatamsaka philosophy, so ably formulated by Fa-tsang. As both Shih-t'ou and Tung-shan are Zen masters, their way of presenting it is not at all like that of the metaphysician."

(Essays in Zen Buddhism - Third Series 19)

"Tung-shan's poem, which was composed when he saw his reflection in the stream which he was crossing at the time, may give us some glimpse into his inner experience of the Prajñâpâramitâ:

Beware of seeking [the Truth] by others,

Further and further he retreats from you;

Alone I go now all by myself,

And I meet him everywhere I turn.

He is no other than myself,

And yet I am not he.

When thus understood,

I am face to face with Tathatâ."

(Essays in Zen Buddhism - Third Series 238)

Long seeking it through others,

I was far from reaching it.

Now I go by myself;