33Neither Mind Nor Buddha非心非佛

馬祖因僧問。如何是佛。祖曰。非心非佛。

A monk asked Mazu, "What is Buddha?"
Mazu said, "Not mind, not Buddha."

Wumen's Comment 無門曰

若向者裏見得。參學事畢。

If you can see into this, your training is finished.

Verse 頌曰

路逢劍客須呈
不遇詩人莫獻
逢人且說三分
未可全施一片

Meet a swordsman on the road, show him your blade.
Spare a poem for no one but a poet.
Tell a man a third and stop.
Never hand over the whole of it.

Pointer

Same master, same question as case 30, opposite answer. Earlier Mazu told someone "this very mind is Buddha," and the line hardened into a slogan monks parroted without living. So when the question comes again here, he flips it: not mind, not Buddha. He is not contradicting himself or having second thoughts; he is yanking back the formula before it can calcify into a doctrine you feel safe holding. Any answer you clutch becomes the next wall, and "mind is Buddha," once it sets into a belief, is already wrong. Read 30 and 33 as a single move with a delay built in. The verse is about fitting the response to the moment, showing your blade only to a swordsman, never dumping the whole thing in anyone's lap, which is also why Mazu refuses to leave his first answer standing as a keepsake.