13No Buddha, No Demon

問：「如何是佛？魔？」師云：「爾一念心疑處是魔。爾若達得萬法無生，心如幻化，更無一塵、一法，處處清淨是佛。然佛與魔是染、淨二境。約山僧見處，無佛、無眾生，無古、無今，得者便得，不歷時節，無修、無證，無得、無失，一切時中更無別法。設有一法過此者，我說如夢、如化。山僧所說皆是。道流！即今目前孤明歷歷地聽者，此人處處不滯，通貫十方，三界自在，入一切境差別不能回換，一剎那間透入法界，逢佛說佛，逢祖說祖，逢羅漢說羅漢，逢餓鬼說餓鬼，向一切處游履國土，教化眾生，未曾離一念，隨處清淨，光透十方，萬法一如。道流！大丈夫兒，今日方知本來無事。秖為爾信不及，念念馳求，捨頭覓頭，自不能歇。如圓頓菩薩入法界現身，向淨土中厭凡忻聖，如此之流，取捨未忘，染淨心在。如禪宗見解，又且不然，直是現今，更無時節。山僧說處，皆是一期藥病相治，總無實法。若如是見得，是真出家，日消萬兩黃金。道流！莫取次被諸方老師印破面門，道「我解禪、解道」，辯似懸河，皆是造地獄業。若是真正學道人，不求世間過，切急要求真正見解。若達真正見，解圓明，方始了畢。」

A monk asked, "What is Buddha? What is the demon?"

Linji said, "The flicker of doubt in your mind, that is the demon. But once you see that nothing in the ten thousand things is truly born, that mind itself is a mirage, that nowhere is there a single speck or a single thing, then that clean clarity everywhere, that is Buddha. Even so, Buddha and demon are only two states, defiled and pure. The way I see it, there is no Buddha and no living being, no past and no present. Whoever gets it gets it now: no waiting, no stages, nothing to cultivate, nothing to prove, nothing gained, nothing lost. At no moment is there ever some other thing. And if anyone claims there is a thing that goes beyond this, I call it a dream, a phantom. Everything I tell you is exactly that.

"Followers of the Way! The one right here before me, alone and bright, vividly listening to me now, that person sticks nowhere. He runs clean through the ten directions and moves freely through the three worlds. Step him into any situation, with all its distinctions, and nothing can turn him. In a single instant he breaks through into the whole universe. Meet a Buddha, he speaks the Buddha; meet a patriarch, he speaks the patriarch; meet an arhat, he speaks the arhat; meet a hungry ghost, he speaks the hungry ghost. He travels every land, teaching every kind of being, and never for an instant leaves this one thought. Wherever he goes is clean, his light shines through the ten directions, and the ten thousand things are all one.

"Followers of the Way! A real man wakes up today to the fact that from the start there was nothing to do. Only because you cannot trust this all the way do you go chasing thought after thought, hunting for your head with your own head, never able to stop. Take the bodhisattva of sudden and complete awakening: he enters the universe and shows up in the flesh, yet standing in the Pure Land he is sick of the ordinary and pining for the holy. People like that are still picking and choosing; they have not dropped the mind that splits pure from defiled. In our Chan school it is not like this. It is right here, right now, no stages at all. Everything I say is just medicine for a particular sickness, a cure for the moment. There is no fixed teaching in any of it. See it this way and you are truly home from the world, worthy to take in ten thousand ounces of gold a day.

"Followers of the Way! Do not let every old teacher around stamp his seal on your face and tell you, 'I understand Chan, I understand the Way,' pouring it out like a waterfall. That is all karma for hell. If you truly study the Way, do not go hunting the world's faults. What you need, and need at once, is true and right seeing. Reach that true seeing, clear and whole, and only then are you done."

Pointer

Linji (died 866), fiercest of the Tang masters and founder of the line that became Rinzai, is asked to draw the line between Buddha and demon, and he won't draw it: the "demon" is your own flicker of doubt and grasping, "Buddha" is that same mind once it quits clutching, so the line you wanted runs down the middle of your own attention. From there he undercuts every stage you might climb, no waiting and no cultivation and nothing to attain, because the "true person, alone and bright" listening right now already is it. His sharpest image is "hunting for your head with your own head," a search that fails precisely by being a search, and that is the engine of his whole record, knocking the seeking out of the seeker's hands. So when he warns against teachers who "stamp a seal on your face" and certify your awakening, notice he is refusing to hand you one too. The thing he won't validate is the thing you came for.