Kannon

Master Ungan of Mujū asked Master Dōgo of Shūitsu, "What does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion do with all those hands and eyes?" Dōgo said, "It is like someone reaching back for the pillow in the dark." Ungan said, "I understand, I understand." Dōgo said, "How do you understand?" Ungan said, "The whole body is hands and eyes." Dōgo said, "That is saying too much. You have only gotten eighty or ninety percent of it." Ungan said, "I am just like this. How about you, senior brother?" Dōgo said, "The entire body is hands and eyes." Even if one says that Kannon, as described, is vast in hearing sounds before and after, it does not match Ungan and Dōgo.

If you wish to study Kannon, you must investigate the present saying of Ungan and Dōgo. The Bodhisattva of Great Compassion spoken of now is Kannon, also called the Bodhisattva of Perceiving the World's Sounds or the Bodhisattva of Perceiving Freedom. Study him as the parent of all buddhas; do not study him as one who has not yet attained the Way. He is the Thus Come One of Correct Dharma Light of the past.

Therefore, one should investigate the saying raised by Ungan: "What does the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion do with all those hands and eyes?" There are lineages that maintain Kannon, and there are lineages that have not yet dreamt of Kannon. Ungan has Kannon; he practiced together with Dōgo. It is not just one or two Kannons; hundreds and thousands of Kannons equally practiced together with Ungan. What truly makes Kannon Kannon is only Ungan's understanding. Why? Because there is a difference between the Kannon spoken of by Ungan and the Kannon spoken of by other buddhas in what is said and what is not said. The Kannon of other buddhas is merely twelve-faced; Ungan is not like that.

The Kannon of other buddhas is merely a thousand hands and eyes; Ungan is not like that. The Kannon of other buddhas is temporarily eighty-four thousand hands and eyes; Ungan is not like that. How do we know it is like this? The "many eyes" of the Bodhisattva of Great Compassion spoken of by Ungan are many paths, not limited to only eighty-four thousand hands and eyes, let alone numbers like twelve or thirty-two or thirty-three. "Many" means "how many." It is like many paths, unlimited in kind.

Since the kinds are already unlimited, they must be boundless and immeasurable. The number used as "many" should be studied in this way as its essential meaning. It has already transcended the limits of the immeasurable and boundless. Now, when Ungan's saying about many hands and eyes is brought up, Dōgo does not say it fails to hit the mark; there must be an essential meaning. Ungan and Dōgo, having been shoulder-to-shoulder companions under Master Yakusan, had already been fellow practitioners for forty years. When they discussed the ancient and modern circumstances, they cut away what was not it and confirmed what was it.

Having been thus, today, when speaking of "many hands and eyes," Ungan speaks and Dōgo confirms. Know that these two ancient buddhas equally speak of the same "many hands and eyes." "Many hands and eyes" is clearly the shared practice of Ungan and Dōgo. Now, he asks Dōgo, "What does he do with them?" This questioning should not be equated with the questioning of sutra masters, treatise masters, or the ten sages and three worthies. This questioning brings forth the saying; it brings forth the hands and eyes.

Now, when saying "What does he do with all those hands and eyes?", there may be ancient buddhas and new buddhas who attain buddhahood using this work as their strength. One might also say, "What does he do with many hands and eyes?", or "What does he make?", or "What does he move?", or "What does he say?" Dōgo says, "It is like someone reaching back for the pillow in the dark." The essential meaning is, for example, like a person in the dark reaching back to feel for the pillow. "Feeling for" means groping and seeking. "In the dark" is the saying of darkness.

It is also like saying "looking at the mountain in daylight." Using hands and eyes is like a person reaching back for the pillow in the dark. One should study using hands and eyes through this. One should examine the time when "in the dark" is considered from the perspective of daylight, and the time when it is truly "in the dark." One should examine the time that is not day or night. Even if a person feeling for the pillow does not grasp that this very act is like Kannon's using hands and eyes, the principle of it being like that cannot be escaped. Now, when we say "like a person," is it merely metaphorical speech?

Or is this person an ordinary person, yet not an ordinary person? If one studies it as the ordinary person of the buddha way, and it is not merely a metaphor, then there is something to study in feeling for the pillow. The pillow too should be inquired into: what form does it have? "In the dark" should not be only the darkness of the day and night of humans and gods. Know that saying it is not obtaining the pillow, not pulling the pillow, not pushing out the pillow. When we try to examine the bottom of Dōgo's saying, "reaching back for the pillow in the dark," we gain the darkness of the eye; see it, do not let it pass. The hand groping for the pillow has not yet touched a limit.

If the crucial point of "reaching back" is crucial, is there a crucial point of "reaching back with the eye"? Illuminate the darkness. Is it that the world is hands and eyes? Are there human hands and eyes? Do hands and eyes alone fly like lightning? Are they one or two strands of hands and eyes that are correct from head to tail? If one examines the principle in this way, then even if there are many hands and eyes, who is this Bodhisattva of Great Compassion?

It sounds like merely the Bodhisattva of Hands and Eyes. If so, then the Bodhisattva of Hands and Eyes might have asked, "What does he do with many Bodhisattvas of Great Compassion?" Know that even if hands and eyes do not hinder each other, "what does he do with them" is "using thus," it is "using thusness." One who speaks thus, even if "the whole body is hands and eyes" is "never hidden," should not wait for the occasion to say "the whole body is hands and eyes." Even if there is that hand and eye which is never hidden, or this hand and eye, it is not oneself, not mountains and rivers, not the sun-face and moon-face, not "the very mind is buddha." Ungan's saying, "I understand, I understand," is not saying he understands Dōgo's statement.

It is "I understand, I understand" in making the saying of "using thusness of hands and eyes" into a saying. It must be using this place for no reason; it must be entering today for no reason. Dōgo's saying, "How do you understand?" means that even if "I understand" is not hindered, Dōgo has the saying "How do you understand?" Since this is "I understand, you understand," how could it not be "eye understands, hand understands"?

Is it an understanding that is already present, or one not yet present? Even if one takes the "I" of "I understand" as the self, one should make the "you" in "How do you understand?" into one's practice. The appearance of Ungan's saying "The whole body is hands and eyes" is studied by many Kannons who recite "reaching back for the pillow in the dark" and say "the whole body is hands and eyes." Even if this Kannon is Kannon, it is a Kannon that has not yet spoken. Ungan's saying "the whole body is hands and eyes" is not saying "hands and eyes are the whole body." Even if "whole" is the whole world, the proper thusness of body, hands, and eyes cannot be that which is made whole.

Even if the body, hands, and eyes have the virtue of wholeness, it should not be the hands and eyes that disrupt the market. The virtue of hands and eyes should not be seen, grasped, or spoken of as "this." Since hands and eyes are already called "many," exceeding a thousand, exceeding ten thousand, exceeding eighty-four thousand, exceeding immeasurable and boundless.

It is not only that "the whole body is hands and eyes" is like this; saving beings and expounding the dharma must also be like this; lands emitting light must also be like this. Therefore, one should study that Ungan's saying is that "the whole body is hands and eyes," not that he makes hands and eyes into the whole body. Even if one says "use the whole body is hands and eyes," or "make it move and act," do not move it. Dōgo says, "That is saying too much. You have only gotten eighty or ninety percent of it." The essential meaning of saying this is that saying is "too much saying." "Too much saying" means saying it all, exposing it, leaving nothing unsaid.

When one speaks at a time when there is finally no remainder of what was unsaid becoming unspeakable, then it is "only saying eighty or ninety percent." The study of the intended meaning is that even if it were one hundred percent, if it is with a power that has not exhausted the saying, it is not thorough investigation. Even if the saying is eighty or ninety percent, when one should speak it, speaking it as eighty or ninety percent becomes speaking it as one hundred percent.

At such a time, because the power is wondrous, one raises a tiny bit of power and says it only as eighty or ninety percent, out of what could be said in hundreds, thousands, ten thousands of sayings. For example, even if one could bring the whole ten-direction world with a hundred thousand powers, it would be inferior to not bringing it. Yet, to bring it with one power is not ordinary power. The mind of "eighty or ninety percent" is like this. However, when hearing the ancient buddhas' saying of "only saying eighty or ninety percent," people grasp it as if the saying should be one hundred percent, but falling short, it is called eighty or ninety percent.

If buddhadharma were like that, it would not have reached the present day. The so-called "eighty or ninety percent" should be studied as if one said "hundreds and thousands," as if one said "many." Since one says "eighty or ninety percent," one knows it is measured; it should not be limited to eighty or ninety. The discourse of the ancient buddhas is studied in this way. Ungan's saying, "I am just like this.

How about you, senior brother?" is spoken because Dōgo made him speak the saying of "only saying eighty or ninety percent." Although this is "leaving no trace," it is also "arms long, sleeves short." It is not that "I am just like this" means setting aside my recent saying even though it is not exhausted.

Dōgo says, "The entire body is hands and eyes." The essential meaning is not that hands and eyes mutually are hands and eyes and thus the entire body; it is that the entire body of hands and eyes is called "the entire body is hands and eyes." Therefore, it is not saying "the body is hands and eyes." "Using many hands and eyes" means that in the many using of hands and using of eyes, the hands and eyes necessarily are "the entire body is hands and eyes." If one were to ask, "What does he do with many bodies and minds?", there might also be a saying that "the entire body is 'what does he do?'" Moreover, Ungan's "whole" and Dōgo's "entire" are not a matter of the saying being exhausted or not exhausted. Although Ungan's "whole" and Dōgo's "entire" are not a comparative argument, each "many hands and eyes" must have such a saying.

Therefore, the Kannon spoken of by old man Śākyamuni is merely a thousand hands and eyes, twelve faces, thirty-three bodies, eighty-four thousand. The Kannon of Ungan and Dōgo is many hands and eyes. Yet, it is not a matter of quantity. When one studies the Kannon of many hands and eyes of Ungan and Dōgo, all buddhas accomplish the samadhi of Kannon as eighty or ninety percent.

The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye, Kannon, the Eighteenth.

This was presented on the twenty-sixth day of the fourth month in the second year of Ninji, the year of the Water Tiger.

Since the Buddha-Dharma came from the West, many Buddhas and Patriarchs have spoken of Avalokiteshvara, yet none have reached the understanding of Ungan Dogo, who alone speaks of this Avalokiteshvara. The Great Master Yongjia Zhenjue had a saying: "Not seeing a single dharma is called Tathagata; only then can one be named Perceiver of the World's Sounds." Although Tathagata and Avalokiteshvara manifest as this very body, this is proof that they are not another body. Magu and Linji had a true meeting of their correct hands and eyes. Each of these is one among many.

Yunmen has the Avalokiteshvara of "seeing form to clarify mind, hearing sound to awaken to the Way." What sound or form is there that is not the seeing and hearing of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara? Baizhang has a gate for entering principle; the Shurangama Assembly has the Perfect Penetration Avalokiteshvara; the Lotus Sutra Assembly has the Avalokiteshvara who Universally Reveals his Manifestations. All are fellow students with the Buddha, and fellow students with the mountains, rivers, and great earth. Yet even these are but one or two among the many hands and eyes.

This was transcribed on the tenth day of midsummer in the second year of Ninji, by Kaijo.