MASTER XU YUN ON ENLIGHTENED LAY PRACTICE (1953/54)

[Shi Da Dao]

(Empty Cloud - 1988 Edition – Pages-180-183)

Note: Master Xu Yun speaks often and with considerable force about the necessity of all Ch’an practitioners to apply moral discipline to their lives so that the power of attachments to deluded thoughts and sensory objects can be broken and the mind ‘stilled’. However, the Ch’an method is a radical and instantaneous technique designed to facilitate a ‘direct’ breakthrough into the empty mind ground. Layman Pang Yun was a fully enlightened being (like Vimalakirti in India) who was married and had children. It just so happened that all his family – his wife, son and daughter – were also all fully enlightened beings who chose the times of their own deaths. How could lay people who did not follow the Vinaya Discipline achieve deep and full enlightenment? The answer lies in the Buddhist teaching of karma, which implies that these beings were in fact highly developed Bodhisattvas who had followed the Vinaya Discipline over many other previous lives, and that in so doing, they had cleared their minds and permanently purified their senses, which were nolonger contaminated by the sense objects of the world. When Charles Luk (1898-1978) asked Master Xu Yun (1840-1959) about the apparent contradiction between his strict injunction to follow the Vinaya Discipline, and the fact that lay people realise enlightenment without doing so, Xu Yun replied: ‘There is a point beyond which a Ch’an master does not speak.’ ACW 16.3.2016

Today, most of you who have come for this Chan week are virtuous laymen (upasakas). You should subdue your minds in an appropriate manner and get rid of all bondages. I will now tell you another gong-an so that you can follow the example given by those mentioned in it. If I do not tell it, I am afraid you will not acquire the Gem and will go home empty-handed, and at the same time I will be guilty of a breach of trust. Please listen attentively: In the Tang Dynasty, there was a upasaka whose name was Pang-yun, alias Dao-xuan, and whose native town was Heng Yang in Hunan province. He was originally a Confucian scholar, and since his youth he realized the futility of passions and was determined in his search for the truth. At the beginning of Zhen-yuan’s reign (785-804), he heard of Master Shi-tou’s learning and called on him for instruction. (When he saw the Master), he asked him: ‘Who is the man who does not take all dharmas as his companions? Shi-tou stretched out his hand to close Pang-yun’s mouth and the visitor immediately understood the move. One day, Shi-tou asked Pang-yun: ‘Since you have seen this old man (i.e., men), what have you been doing each day?’ Pang-yun replied: ‘If you ask me what I have been doing, I do not know how to open my mouth (to talk about it).’ Then he presented the following poem to Shi-tou:

There is nothing special about what I do each day;
I only keep myself in harmony with it,
Everywhere I neither accept nor reject anything.
Nowhere do I confirm or refute a thing.
Why do people say that red and purple differ?
There’s not a speck of dust on the blue mountain.
Supernatural powers and wonder-making works
Are but fetching water and the gathering of wood.

Shi-tou approved of the poem and asked Pang-yun: ‘Will you join the Sangha order or will you remain a layman (upasaka)?’ Pang-yun replied: ‘I will act as I please,’ and did not shave his head. Later, Pang-yun called on Master Ma-zu and asked him: ‘Who is the man who does not take all dharmas as his companions?’ Mazu replied: ‘I will tell you this after you have swallowed all the water in the West River. Upon hearing this, Pang-yun was instantaneously awakened to the profound doctrine. He stayed two years at the monastery (of Ma-zu). Since his complete realization of his fundamental nature, the Upasaka gave up all worldly occupations, dumped into the Xiang River his whole fortune amounting to 10,000 strings of gold and silver coins and made bamboo-ware to earn his living. One day, while chatting with his wife on the doctrine of the unborn, the Upasaka said: ‘Difficult! Difficult! Difficult! It is like unpacking and distributing ten loads of sesame seeds on the top of a tree.’ His wife interjected: ‘Easy! Easy! Easy! A hundred blades of grass are the Master’s indication.’ Hearing their dialogue, their daughter Ling-zhao said laughingly: ‘Oh, you two old people! How can you talk like that?’ The Upasaka said to his daughter: ‘What, then, would you say?’ She replied: ‘It is not difficult! And it is not easy! When hungry one eats and when tired one sleeps. Pan-yun clapped his hands, laughed and said: ‘My son will not get a wife; my daughter will not have a husband. We will all remain together to speak the language of the un-born.’ Since then, his dialectic powers became eloquent and forcible and he was admired everywhere. When the Upasaka left Master Yo-shan, the latter sent ten Chan monks to accompany him to the front door (of the monastery). Pointing his finger at the falling snow, the Upasaka said to them: ‘Good snow! The flakes do not fall elsewhere.’ A Chan monk named Quan asked him: ‘Where do they fall?’ The Upasaka slapped the monk in the face, and Quan said: ‘You can’t act so carelessly.’ The Upasaka replied: ‘What a Chan monk you are! The god of the dead will not let you pass.’ Quan asked: ‘Then what does the Venerable Upasaka mean?’ The Upasaka slapped him again and said: ‘You see like the blind and you talk like the dumb.’ The Upasaka used to frequent places where sutras were explained and commented on. One day, he listened to the expounding of the Diamond Sutra, and when the commentator came to the sentence on the non-existence of ego and personality, he asked: ‘Venerable Sir, since there is neither self nor other, who is now expounding and who is listening’ As the commentator could not reply, the Upasaka said: ‘Although I am a layman, I comprehend something.’ The commentator asked him: ‘What is the Venerable Upasaka’s interpretation?’ The Upasaka replied with the following poem:

There is neither ego nor personality,
Who is distant then and who is intimate?
Take my advice and quit your task of comment
Since that cannot compare with the direct quest of the truth.
The nature of the Diamond Wisdom Contains no foreign dust.
The words ‘I hear’, ‘I believe’ and ‘I receive’
Are meaningless and used expediently.

After hearing the poem, the commentator was delighted (with the correct interpretation) and praised (the Upasaka). One day, the Upasaka asked Ling-zhao: “How do you understand the ancients’ saying: ‘Clearly there are a hundred blades of grass; clearly these are the Patriarchs’ indications?’” Ling-zhao: “Oh, you old man, how can you talk like that?” The Upasaka asked her: “how would you say it?” Ling-zhao replied: “Clearly there are a hundred blades of grass; clearly these are the Patriarchs’ indications.” The Upasaka laughed approvingly. When he knew that he was about to die, he said to Ling-zhao: ‘Go out and see if it is early or late; if it is noon, let me know.’ Ling-zhao went out and returned, saying: ‘The sun is in mid-heaven, but unfortunately it is being swallowed by the heaven-dog. Father, why don’t you go out to have a look?’ Thinking that her story was true, he left his seat and went outside. Thereupon, Ling-zhao (taking advantage of her father’s absence) ascended to his seat, sat with crossed legs, brought her two palms together, and passed away. When the Upasaka returned, he saw that Ling-zhao had died, and said with a sigh: ‘My daughter was sharp-witted and left before me.’ So he postponed his death for a week in order to bury his daughter. When Magistrate Yu-ti came to inquire after his health, the Upasaka said to him: Vow only to wipe out all that is; Beware of making real what is not. Life in this (mortal world) A shadow is, an echo. After saying this, he rested his head on the magistrate’s knees and passed away. As willed by him, his body was cremated and the ashes were thrown into the lake. His wife heard of his death and went to inform her son of it. Upon hearing the news, the son stopped his work in the field, rested his chin on the handle of his hoe and passed away in a standing position. After witnessing these three successive events, the mother retired to an unknown place to live in seclusion. As you see, the whole family of four had supernatural powers and could do works of wonder; and these laymen, who were also upasakas like you, were of superior attainments. At present, it is impossible to find men of such outstanding ability not only among you upasakas (and upasikas) but also among monks and nuns who are no better than myself, Xu-yun. What a disgrace! Now let us exert ourselves again in our training!