Menju

At that time, Śākyamuni Buddha, upon the Vulture Peak assembly in the land of western India, amidst a million beings, picked up an udumbara flower and blinked. At that time, the Venerable Mahākāśyapa broke into a smile. Śākyamuni Buddha said, "I have the treasury of the true dharma eye, the wondrous mind of nirvana; I entrust it to Mahākāśyapa." This is precisely the principle of the buddhas and ancestors personally transmitting the treasury of the true dharma eye. It was correctly transmitted from the Seven Buddhas down to the Venerable Kāśyapa; from the Venerable Kāśyapa it was transmitted twenty-eight times down to the Venerable Bodhidharma.

The Venerable Bodhidharma personally came to the land of China and personally transmitted it to the Venerable Huike, the Great Ancestor of the True School, Great Master Pujue. It was transmitted five times down to Great Master Dajian Huineng of Mount Caoxi. It was transmitted seventeen times down to my late teacher, the Ancient Buddha of Mount Tiantai, Taiming Mountain, Qingyuan Prefecture, in the Great Song dynasty.

On the first day of the fifth month, in the first year of the Baoqing era of the Great Song [1225], Dōgen for the first time offered incense and bowed in reverence to my late teacher, the Ancient Buddha of Tiantai, at Miaogaotai. My late teacher, the Ancient Buddha, saw Dōgen for the first time. At that time, pointing and personally transmitting to Dōgen, he said, "The dharma gate of the personal transmission of the buddhas and ancestors is fully realized." This is precisely the picking up of the flower on Vulture Peak. It is the obtaining of the marrow at Mount Song. It is the transmission of the robe at Huangmei. It is the personal transmission at Mount Dong.

This is the personal transmission of the treasury of the eye of the buddhas and ancestors. It exists only within my house; others have not even dreamt of seeing or hearing it. This principle of personal transmission is the face of the buddhas and ancestors because Śākyamuni Buddha, in the very presence of the assembly of Buddha Kāśyapa, personally transmitted and protected it. If it is not personally transmitted from face to face, one is not among the buddhas.

Śākyamuni Buddha saw the Venerable Kāśyapa with intimate closeness. Even Ānanda and Rāhula did not equal Kāśyapa's intimate closeness; even all the great bodhisattvas did not equal Kāśyapa's intimate closeness; they could not sit in the seat of the Venerable Kāśyapa. The World-Honored One and Kāśyapa sitting together, wearing the same robe, is made the buddha ceremony of his lifetime. The Venerable Kāśyapa personally received the personal transmission from the World-Honored One. It was transmitted mind-to-mind. It was transmitted body-to-body. It was transmitted eye-to-eye. He served, revered, bowed to, and beheld Śākyamuni Buddha.

The number of times he crushed his bones and smashed his body is beyond knowing, beyond millions of transformations. His own face is not a face; he personally received the face of the Tathāgata. Śākyamuni Buddha truly beholds the Venerable Kāśyapa. The Venerable Kāśyapa beholds the Venerable Ānanda in his very presence. The Venerable Ānanda bows to the buddha-face of the Venerable Kāśyapa in his very presence. This is personal transmission.

The Venerable Ānanda maintained and upheld this personal transmission, and receiving Śāṇakavāsa, personally transmitted it to him. When the Venerable Śāṇakavāsa truly beheld the Venerable Ānanda, it was solely face giving to face, personally transmitting and personally receiving. In this way, the ancestral teachers of each generation, each lineage, have personally transmitted down to the present because disciple and master see each other, and master sees disciple. Even if there is one ancestor, one master, and one disciple, if they do not personally transmit to each other, they are not among the buddhas and ancestors. For example, it is like making waters flow to the source to make the ancestral stream long, or like passing on a lamp to make the light constant: even if there are hundreds, thousands, ten-thousands of dharma activities, the root and branches are one thusness. It is also the swift opportunity of pecking and breaking open.

Therefore, directly encountering Śākyamuni Buddha, we serve him throughout the days and nights of a lifetime. Illuminated by the Buddha’s face, we serve him throughout the days and nights of an age. We do not know through how many immeasurable eons this has been coming and going. Quietly reflecting on this, we should rejoice. Having bowed to Śākyamuni Buddha’s face, having transferred Śākyamuni Buddha’s Buddha-eye into our own eyes, having transferred our own eyes into the Buddha-eye—this is the Buddha’s eye-organ, this is the Buddha’s face. This has been transmitted face-to-face without interruption for a single generation until now; this is the face-to-face transmission.

The direct lineage of the present day, spanning several tens of generations, is the Buddha’s face, face-to-face. It is the face-to-face reception from the primordial Buddha-face. To bow to this correct transmission, this face-to-face transmission, is precisely to bow to the Seven Buddhas and Śākyamuni Buddha. It is to make offerings and bow to the Twenty-Eight Indian Ancestors, such as the Venerable Mahākāśyapa. The face and eye of the Buddhas and Ancestors are like this.

To meet these Buddhas and Ancestors is to meet the Seven Buddhas, such as Śākyamuni Buddha. It is the true, such-like moment when the Buddhas and Ancestors intimately give face-to-face transmission to the self. A face-to-face-transmission Buddha gives face-to-face transmission to a face-to-face-transmission Buddha. Using entanglements, they give face-to-face transmission to entanglements, without ever cutting them off. Opening an eye, they give eye-transmission to an eye, and receive eye-transmission. Revealing a face, they give face-transmission to a face, and receive face-transmission. Face-to-face transmission is the giving and receiving at the place of the face.

Taking up the mind, they give mind-transmission to the mind, and receive mind-transmission. Manifesting the body, they give body-transmission to the body. Other regions and other countries also take this as their fundamental lineage. East of the land of China, only within the house of this Buddha’s correct transmission is there face-to-face giving and receiving. The correct eye with which we newly see the Tathāgata has been transmitted.

When bowing to Śākyamuni Buddha’s face, it is not that the fifty-one generations and the Seven Buddhas and Ancestors are lined up side-by-side or in a row; yet there is simultaneous face-to-face transmission. For a single generation, if one does not see the master, one is not a disciple; if one does not see the disciple, one is not a master. Being definitively so, they meet; meeting, they have carried out face-to-face transmission. That the Dharma has been transmitted is the manifesting of the Way at the place of the Ancestors’ face-to-face transmission. Therefore, the radiance of the Tathāgata’s face has been directly taken up.

Thus, even if we speak of a thousand years, ten thousand years, a hundred kalpas, or a billion kalpas, this face-to-face transmission is Śākyamuni Buddha’s face manifesting and giving transmission. Where these Buddhas and Ancestors are manifesting, the World-Honored One, Kāśyapa, the fifty-one generations, and the Seven Ancestral Generations are shadows manifesting, are light manifesting. They are body manifesting, are mind manifesting. They are the coming of the pointed foot, are the coming of the pointed nose.

Even if not a single word has yet been grasped, not half a phrase yet understood, if the master has already seen the disciple from within, and the disciple has already bowed to the master from the crown of the head, this is the correct transmission’s face-to-face transmission. Such face-to-face transmission should be revered. If it were merely like revealing traces of the mind in the mind-field, it would not necessarily be the Great Venerable Living One. To give face-to-face transmission by exchanging faces, to have face-to-face transmission upon turning one’s head—this would require a face-skin three inches thick, a face-skin ten feet thin.

That very face-skin must be the great perfect mirror of all buddhas. Because the great perfect mirror is made the face-skin, there is no flaw or shadow, inside or out. The great perfect mirror of the great perfect mirror has been transmitted face-to-face. To have correctly transmitted the true Dharma by which we directly see Śākyamuni Buddha is to be more intimate kin than Śākyamuni Buddha himself. It causes Śākyamuni Buddha, three-three before and after the tip of the eye, to appear.

Therefore, if you would deeply serve Śākyamuni Buddha, if you would deeply revere and long for Śākyamuni Buddha, you should deeply revere and honor this face-to-face transmission and correct transmission, and respectfully bow with the reverence due to what is hard to meet and hard to encounter. That is to bow to the Tathāgata. That is to receive face-to-face transmission from the Tathāgata. To newly witness the vividness of the face-to-face-transmission Tathāgata’s correct transmission and practice—whether you think it is the self you have always thought was yourself, or whether it is another self—you should cherish it, you should protect it.

Within the temple, the authentic transmission states: "Those who make prostrations to the eight stupas are freed from sinful hindrances and realize the fruit of the Way." This is because the place where Śākyamuni Buddha's Way became manifest was established as his birthplace, established as the place where he turned the Dharma wheel, established as the place of his enlightenment, established as the place of his nirvana; it remains at the border of Kanyākubja and lingers in the Āmrapālī Grove, forming the great earth and forming the great sky.

Furthermore, because one makes prostrations to the stupas formed even in the realms of sound, smell, taste, touch, dharmas, and forms, the fruit of the Way manifests and is realized. This making prostrations to these eight stupas is practiced universally in the western land of India, with laypeople and monastics, heavenly beings and human beings, all making prostrations and offerings. This itself is a single volume of sutra. Buddhist sutras are like this.

How much more so is the cultivation of the thirty-seven dharmas and the achievement of the fruit of the Way in each and every life the spreading of Śākyamuni Buddha's traces of practice and cultivation throughout antiquity and the present, disseminated on the ancient paths of every place, and because they are clearly manifest throughout past and present, enlightenment is achieved. Know this: those layered eight stupas—how often is the frosty blossom renewed? Though wind and rain frequently seek to obscure them, they leave traces in emptiness and traces in form; their merit, not being withheld from people now, does not diminish.

When one now seeks to practice those roots, powers, awakening factors, and the Way, though there may be afflictions and obstructive delusions, in practicing and realizing them, their power is still fresh now. The merit of Śākyamuni Buddha is indeed like this. How much more so is the present face-to-face transmission, which cannot be compared to those. Those thirty-seven factors of enlightenment have as their root source that Buddha-face, Buddha-mind, Buddha-body, Buddha-Way, Buddha-light, Buddha-tongue, and so on.

That accumulation of merit of the eight stupas also has the Buddha-face and so on as its fundamental basis. Now, as a man studying the Buddha-Dharma, when treading the vital path of thorough penetration, one should earnestly contemplate and work on this day and night without interruption; one should rejoice and take delight. It is said: "Our country surpasses other lands, our Way alone is unsurpassed.

In other regions there are many who are not like us." To say that our country, our Way, is unsurpassed and uniquely honored is because, although the assembly on Vulture Peak universally guides throughout the ten directions, the true legitimate heir of Shaolin is indeed the teaching master of China. The descendants of Caoxi now transmit it face-to-face. This time, this is the favorable season for the Buddha-Dharma to newly enter mud and enter water. If one does not realize the fruit at this time, at what time will one realize it? If one does not sever delusions at this time, at what time will one sever them? If one does not become a buddha at this time, at what time will one become a buddha? If one is not a sitting buddha at this time, at what time will one be a walking buddha?

One's work must be meticulous and detailed.

When Śākyamuni Buddha graciously entrusted and face-to-face transmitted to the venerable Mahākāśyapa, he said, "I have the treasury of the true dharma eye; I entrust it to Mahākāśyapa." At the assembly on Mount Song, the venerable Bodhidharma clearly indicated the Second Patriarch, saying, "You have attained my marrow." It is understood: the face-to-face transmission of the treasury of the true dharma eye, and the face-to-face transmission of "you have attained my marrow," is solely this face-to-face transmission. At this very moment of suchness, when you thoroughly penetrate your own marrow and bones from of old, there is the face-to-face transmission of the buddhas and ancestors.

The face-to-face transmission of great awakening, the face-to-face transmission of the mind seal, is also a special realm of one corner. Although it is not that the transmission is exhausted, the principle of lacking awakening has not yet been fully investigated. Generally, the great Way of the buddhas and ancestors is solely face-to-face transmission and face-to-face reception, receiving face-to-face transmission and face-to-face. There is no additional dharma, no deficiency.

One should, with following joy and rejoicing, believe, receive, uphold, and practice even this very self-face met in the meeting of this face-to-face transmission. In the first year of Baoqing of Great Song, on the first day of the fifth month of the year kinototori [1225], Dōgen for the first time bowed to and received face-to-face transmission from his former teacher, the Ancient Buddha of Tiantong. I was gradually permitted to hear the inner sanctum. Upon the slight dropping away of body and mind, there was the maintaining and bearing of the face-to-face transmission, and I have now returned to the country of Japan.

Within the Buddha Way, there are those who have never seen or heard the principle of face-to-face transmission being thus. In the era of Emperor Renzong of the great Song dynasty, during the Jingyou period, there was a Chan master named Cheng Gu of Jianfu Temple. Ascending the hall, he said, "Great Master Yunmen Kuangzhen is now presently existing. Do all of you still see him? If you can see, then you are fellow practitioners with this mountain monk. Do you see? Do you see? This matter must be truly accurate from the start; you must not deceive yourselves." He continued, "Consider, for example, Huangbo of ancient times.

Hearing Abbot Baizhang bring up the story of Great Master Mazu's shout below, he thereby had a great awakening. Baizhang asked, 'Will you not succeed Great Master [Mazu] in the future?' Huangbo said, 'Although I recognize the Great Master, essentially I do not see the Great Master. If I were to succeed the Great Master, I fear I would lose my descendants.' Assembly, at that time, less than five years had passed since Great Master Mazu's parinirvana. Huangbo himself said he did not see. You should know that Huangbo's point of seeing was not complete.

He essentially possessed only one eye. This mountain monk is not so. I recognize Great Master Yunmen, and I also see Great Master Yunmen. Only then can one succeed Great Master Yunmen. However, Yunmen entered extinction over a hundred years ago. How can one now speak of the principle of seeing him face-to-face? Do you understand? Only those who are thorough and accomplished can verify this. Inferior people give rise to doubt and slander in their minds. Those who have seen cannot speak of it. Those who have not seen, do you now look into it or not?

Please stand well a while; take care." Now, even if you say you recognize Great Master Yunmen and see Great Master Yunmen, does Great Master Yunmen now see you face-to-face? If Great Master Yunmen does not see you, you cannot succeed Great Master Yunmen. Because Great Master Yunmen has not yet approved you, you also do not say, "Great Master Yunmen sees me." Know this: you and Great Master Yunmen have not yet seen each other. Among the seven buddhas and all buddhas of past, present, and future, which buddha-ancestor succeeded in the Dharma without teacher and disciple seeing each other?

Do not say that Huangbo's point of seeing was incomplete. How could you measure Huangbo's conduct? How could you measure Huangbo's words? Huangbo is an ancient buddha, thoroughly investigated in Dharma succession. You have never even dreamt of the principle of Dharma succession; you have no study or learning in it. Huangbo succeeded his teacher in the Dharma; he maintained and actualized the ancestors. Huangbo met his teacher; he saw his teacher. You, in all respects, do not see your teacher; you do not know the ancestors. You do not know yourself; you do not see yourself. There is no teacher who sees you; your teacher's eye has not yet opened through practice.

Truly, your point of seeing is incomplete; your Dharma succession is incomplete. Do you know or not? Great Master Yunmen is a Dharma descendant of Huangbo. How could you measure the place of the Way of Baizhang and Huangbo? You cannot even measure the place of the Way of Great Master Yunmen. The place of the Way of Baizhang and Huangbo is something taken up and raised by those who have the power of study and practice. Those who have a place of direct pointing can measure it.

You have no study and practice; you have no such place. You cannot know it; you cannot measure it. That he said he would not succeed Great Master Mazu, though less than five years had passed since Mazu's parinirvana, is truly not even worth laughing at. Even if one should succeed in the Dharma, one should succeed even after immeasurable kalpas. If one should not succeed, one cannot succeed even for half a day, even for a moment. You do not see the sun-face moon-face of the Buddha Way at all; you are a benighted, ignorant person. Though over a hundred years have passed since Great Master Yunmen's parinirvana, you say you succeed Yunmen.

Do you have such awesome power that you succeed Yunmen? You are more pitiable than a three-year-old child. One who succeeds Yunmen in the Dharma a thousand years from now will have ten times your power. I now save you; you must for a while investigate the critical phrase. Baizhang's saying, "Will you not succeed the Great Master in the future?" is not saying you should succeed Great Master Mazu.

For a while, you must investigate the story of the lion's fierce advance; you must investigate the story of the tortoise climbing up the tree upside down; you must investigate the vital path of advancing and retreating. In Dharma succession, there is such power of investigation. The words Huangbo spoke, "I fear I would lose my descendants," you cannot measure at all. Who is this "I" who speaks, and who are these "descendants"? You must investigate meticulously. Without concealment, it is revealed; the Way is immediately present.

Nevertheless, a Chan master named Weibai of Foguo, being in the dark about the Dharma succession of the buddha-ancestors, listed Cheng Gu as a Dharma heir of Yunmen. This is a mistake. Later students should not think that Cheng Gu had any study and practice. If, like you, one could succeed in the Dharma based on texts, then all who attain awakening by reading sutras would succeed Śākyamuni Buddha, but it is not so. Awakening based on sutras necessarily seeks the verification of a true teacher. As for what Cheng Gu says, you have not yet even seen Yunmen's recorded sayings. Only those who have seen Yunmen's words have succeeded Yunmen.

With your own eye, you do not yet see Yunmen; with your own eye, you do not see yourself; with Yunmen's eye, you do not see Yunmen; with Yunmen's eye, you do not see yourself. There are many such cases of not having investigated. You must further buy and wear traveling sandals, seek a true teacher, and then succeed in the Dharma. Do not say you succeed Great Master Yunmen. If you speak like this, you belong to the class of outsiders. Even if it were Baizhang, if he spoke as you do, it would be a great mistake.