Stay with Chan! This is the most efficient way to attain
enlightenment. Don't allow yourself to be tempted into adopting
other methods.
Even Yong Jia, by his own admission, wasted a lot of time
with intellectual philosophizing before he tried the Chan method
with Patriarch Hui Neng. "In my youth," he said, "I studied sutras
and shastras and commentaries trying endlessly to discriminate
between name and form. I might as well have tried to count sand
grains in the ocean. I had forgotten the Buddha's question, `Does a
man who counts other men's gems get any richer?'"
The Chan method is truly like the Vajra King's sword. In
one stroke it can cut through illusion to reach Buddhahood.
Whenever I think about the years of practice that often
precede enlightenment's momentary experience, I think about Chan
Master Shen Zan. We can all learn a lot from him.
Shen Zan had a master who unfortunately was not enlightened. One cannot give what one does not own; and so, empty
handed, Shen Zan left his old master in order to go and study with
Master Bai Zhang.
Now, under Master Bai Zhang's guidance, Shen Zan
attained enlightenment and then, with fond respect, he went back to
visit his old teacher.
The old man asked him, "What did you learn after you left
me?" And because he was enlightened, Shen Zan was able to reply
kindly, "Nothing, absolutely nothing." To the old man, this was bittersweet news. He was sorry that his student hadn't learned anything, but he was happy to have him back. "If you want, you can
stay here," he said.
So Shen Zan stayed and served his old master.
One day, while taking a bath, the old man asked Shen Zan
to scrub his back which was very dirty. As Shen Zan began to scrub
he said, "Such funny crystal windows in your Buddha Hall." His
master didn't know what he meant. "Please explain your remark,"
he asked.
As Shen Zan continued to scrub away the dirt, he said,
"Although you can't see in, your Buddha Self sends out such illuminating rays." This answer puzzled the master.
A few days later, as the old master sat under a waxed-
paper window studying a sutra, a bee began to buzz around the
room; and the bee, drawn to the outside light, kept crashing into the
window paper, trying to get out of the room. Shen Zan watched the
frustrated bee and said, "So you want to get out and enter the infinity of space! Well, you won't do it by penetrating old paper..." Then
he said simply, "The door stands open but the bee refuses to go
through it. See how it knocks its head against the shut window.
Foolish Bee! When will it understand that the Way is blocked by
paper?"
Now a glimmer of light began to penetrate the teacher's
mind. He sensed the deeper meaning of Shen Zan's words. Slyly he
asked, "You were gone for a long time. Are you sure you didn't
learn anything while you were away?"
Shen Zan laughed and confessed, "After I left you, I studied under master Bai Zhang. Through him I learned how to halt my
discriminating mind... to cease being judgmental... to transcend the
ego's world. Through him I attained the Holy Fruit of enlightenment."
Now, when the old master heard this wonderful news, he
assembled all the monks and ordered that a banquet be prepared in
Shen Zan's honor. He was so happy. "Please allow your old master
to become your student," he asked Shen Zan. "Please expound the
Dharma to me... especially that business about the baths and bees."
Shen Zan laughed. "Your Buddha Self shines out from
you even though you can't see it for yourself. It is always pure and
no amount of dirt can ever soil it. Also, your eyes are always
turned outwards, fixed on printed pages; but Infinity cannot be captured in words. Books only engage us in debates. If you want to be
free from illusion, you must look inwards. The Way into Infinity is
on the other side of your gaze. Look inward to see your shining
Buddha Self!"
Suddenly the old teacher understood! Suddenly he saw
into his own Buddha Nature! He got so excited that he declared that
Shen Zan would be the Abbot of the monastery. "Who would have
believed that in my old age I finally would have made it across?" he
shouted.
But that's what's so nice about the Eternal Moment, isn't
it? Step outside of time just once, and all the years you spent in
ignorance and suffering recede into vagueness. They're only something you seem to remember. Your old small self is gone and all his
old enemies and friends and relatives and all his old experiences,
bitter or sweet, have lost their power over him. They were like a
cinema show... believable while he was in the theatre, but not when
he came out into the daylight. Reality dispelled the illusion.
In Nirvana you're neither young nor old. You just are. And
who are you? That's easy.
The Buddha.
