nine pieces of zen (eBook)

2

Perceive Your Original Nature

by Tian-t’ai Yunju Chi
of the Ox-head School

Q. “You tell people to perceive their original nature. Can you explain what you mean by this?”

A. “The original nature is the very essence of things, it is the fundamental mind. It is the Buddha-nature. This original nature can’t be perceived with your eyes. It is the very thing that does the perceiving. It is absolute space-like, indivisible intelligence that is without shape or form. It cannot be adequately described in conventional language. You cannot say that it either exists or does not exist.29 It’s neither long nor short and neither big nor small. It is timeless, ever present awareness beyond any characterization that might be applied to it. This is the Buddha-nature. To wake up to this Buddha-nature is to be awakened to one’s own fundamental mind.”

Q. “You say that the original nature is space-like, indivisible intelligence that cannot be described as either existing or not existing. If it neither exists nor does not exist, then what is there to perceive?”

A. “To perceive that there is nothing to be perceived [as an object].”

Q. “If there is nothing to be perceived, then what is perceiving this [as subject]?”

A. “It is both perceiving and not perceiving.”

Q. “I must say that I don’t follow you. Can you explain further.”

A. “It is both the perceiving and the perceived. Both the subject and the object.”

Q. “This makes no sense to me. There must surely be something to be found as an “ultimate principle” which can be perceived or known?”

A. “You are mistaken and your approach to this is wrong. Your ideas about something and nothing are confused. It is a dualistic approach that pre-supposes that there is a somebody to know a something. This is the conventional way of thinking that limits you to the world of birth and death.30 Those who are awake have woken up to the fact that subject and object are relative fabrications that in the absolute sense are without meaning. Such people can perceive things all day long but no thing is ever perceived. To imagine that there is some ultimate “thing” that is there to be perceived by a ‘you’ is mistaken. If you wish to perceive your original nature there is only one way. You have to go beyond the duality of perceiver and perceived, by stepping beyond your notions of subject and object as distinct categories.31 This is called waking up to the Buddha-nature.”

Q. “So then, where is this Buddha-nature?”

A. “It is everywhere and nowhere at the same time.”

Q. “Does everybody have this Buddha-nature?”

A. “Why shouldn’t they have it?”

Q. “How about people who are not awake to it? Do they still have it?”

A. “Why not?”

Q. “If it’s both everywhere and nowhere and everybody has it, then why do those who are not awake to it, not perceive it?”

A. “That is because whilst such a person is right in the midst of the Buddha-nature, he or she continuously fabricates the duality of subject and object through conceptualizing thought structures. Because of this, the person limits him or herself to the endless transmigration of birth and death. On the other hand, those who are awake to their original nature are well aware that the Buddha-nature has nothing to do with either existing or not existing, and are not caught in the mental fabrications created by their own discriminating consciousness. Accordingly they do not divide up the world of their day to day experience into subject and object.”

Q. “I have listened to your explanation but there must still be some fundamental difference between those who are awake and those who are not? Those who are awake must surely have attained some ultimate special thing that others do not have?”

A. “Yes. They have awakened to the fact that there is no ultimate thing to be acquired.”

Q. “If that’s the case, please give me some further instruction that can help me to better understand what you have been explaining.”

A. “I will try to say a few more words to help you. You should grasp the point that in the Buddha-nature itself, there is absolutely no difference whatsoever between the person who is awake to it and the person who is not. Descriptions such as the awake and unawake are purely verbal expressions that have little or no relationship with the underlying reality of things. They are only labels. Understand that the description is not the thing in itself. If you follow the linguistic description of things you will become enmeshed in the sea of concepts. We call this the ocean of birth and death. Don’t become caught up in the carnival ride of your own conceptual ideation. To see through all of your fabricated ideas and thought structures is actually to perceive your original nature. We call this waking up to the Buddha-nature. This really is the essence of my teaching.

Commentary

Tian-t’ai Yunju Chi

There are no dates available for Zen master Tian-t’ai Yunju Chi and almost nothing is known about his life. He was the last in line of the Ox-head school masters to be recorded in the Records of the Transmission of the Lamp. He is named after Mt. Tian-t’ai where he lived. He was a student of Zen master Tianru Weize of Fokuyan on Mt. Tian-t’ai, who was the seventh-generation collateral dharma heir of the Fourth Zen Patriarch Tao-hsin (580-651 CE).

The Ox-head school

The Ox-head lineage was established by Niu-t’ou Fa-jung (594–657 CE) on Mt. Niu-t’ou (near modern-day Nanjing City) in around 642 CE. Mt. Niu-t’ou was traditionally Taoist territory, and is close to Mt. Mao (Mao Shan) where the Supreme Clarity (Shangqing) school of Taoism was established in the fourth century.

The teachings and practices of the Ox-head school were based on the Prajnaparamita teachings of emptiness (sunyata) and the dialectics of Madhyamaka32 / San-lun33 and also included Taoist influences such as the Tao Te Ching and the philosophy of Chuang-tzu. As it developed, the Buddha-nature and Avatamsaka (Hua-yen) teachings also came to play a role. Essentially though, the hallmark of this school was an emphasis on the teachings of emptiness.

Overshadowed by the East Mountain school34 and the subsequent development of the “Southern school”, the contribution of the Ox-head school has probably been under-appreciated. The Zen establishment has long regarded it as being outside the mainstream. However, research into ancient Buddhist manuscripts found in the Mogao Caves at Dunhuang in the early twentieth century has caused scholars to reevaluate the contribution and importance of the Ox-head school. The Ox-head school was actually a wellspring of creativity during the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries, and this may have continued until as late as the early years of the Sung Dynasty (around the end of the tenth century).

More recent research suggests that a number of significant Zen works previously attributed to well-known figures in the Zen lineage may actually have been produced by members of the Ox-head school.35

On the text

The text is a record of the questions put by a monk from Hua-yen temple named Ji-chong to Master Tian-t’ai Yunju Chi. It is contained in Book IV of the Records of the Transmission of the Lamp. The focus of the dialogue is the Buddha-nature. The Buddha-nature is also referred to as the Tathagatagarbha. In the language of Zen it has also variously been described as the “original nature,” the “true self,” the “self-nature,” the “true nature” and “suchness”, among other terms. The Buddha-nature doctrine is really the very essence of the teaching of the Zen school.

Tathagatagarbha/Buddha-nature

It is believed that the Mahasamghika Caitika schools of the Andhra region of southern India were responsible for the development of the Tathagatagarbha (Buddha-nature) doctrine around the third century CE.

The Tathagatagarbha (literally “the womb of suchness”) is the Mahayana term for reality, also known as the Buddha-nature, which is the fundamental nature of existence. The word garbha in Sanskrit can be translated as both “womb” and “seed” as well as the “kernel’ or “essence of a thing”. Therefore the Tathagatagarbha has been considered from different perspectives as something both seed-like which needs to be developed and as something already perfect and complete as it is, which merely requires recognition.36

The Tathagatagarbha doctrine is most eloquently described in the Tathagatagarbha Sutra which is believed to be the first of the Tathagatagarbha-style sutras and was composed around 200 CE. It is considered to be the earliest expression of the Tathagatagarbha doctrine and the term Tathagatagarbha itself seems to have been coined in this sutra. In...