Extensive Record of Chan Master Baizhang Huaihai (Recorded Sayings of the Four Masters, Volume Three) [百丈懷海禪師廣錄（四家語錄卷三）]

Question: — What is the essential Dharma for entering the Way of sudden enlightenment of the Mahāyāna?

The Master answered: — First, you must cut off all conditions and lay aside the myriad affairs. All dharmas, whether wholesome or unwholesome, worldly or transcendent, are all to be let go. Do not record, do not remember; do not condition, do not cling to thought.

Let go of body and mind, granting them all to be at ease. Let the mind be like wood and stone, the mouth engaging in no disputation, the mind giving rise to no thought. If the ground of the mind is empty, then the sun of wisdom appears of itself, just as when the layers of mist and clouds disperse the sun comes forth.

Simply put an end to all grasping after conditions, and then the defiled attachments of greed and anger, of craving, of clinging, of the pure and the impure, all come to an end. Toward the five desires and the eight winds, the mind does not stir; it is not obstructed by what is seen, heard, sensed, or known; it is not deluded by any dharma. Then naturally one is replete with all merit and virtue, replete with all spiritual powers and wondrous functions — this is one who is liberated.

Toward all the realms of dharmas, the mind does not contend or move in confusion, neither gathering in nor scattering out, passing through all sounds and forms without being caught or hindered — this is called a person of the Way.

To make no use of good and evil, right and wrong, to be fond of no single dharma and to abandon no single dharma — this is called a person of the Mahāyāna.

To be bound by none of these — good and evil, emptiness and existence, defilement and purity, the conditioned and the unconditioned, the worldly and the transcendent, merit and wisdom — this is called the Buddha's wisdom.

When right and wrong, good and bad, the reasonable and the unreasonable, and every kind of attachment and conceptual understanding are all swept clean, so that nothing can bind you any longer and everywhere you are at ease — this is called the Bodhisattva who, upon first arousing the mind, ascends to the stage of Buddhahood.

Question: — Toward all realms, how can one attain a mind like wood and stone?

The Master answered: — All dharmas, from the very first, do not declare themselves empty, nor do they declare themselves form; nor do they declare themselves right or wrong, impure or pure. They have no mind that binds people. It is only because people themselves give rise to false and deluded bondage, producing so many kinds of conceptual understanding and apprehension, rousing so many kinds of views, giving birth to so much love and fear.

One need only clearly know that dharmas do not arise of themselves, but all come to be through one's own single thought of deluded, upside-down clinging to appearances. Know that mind and realm, from the first, never come together — right there is liberation. Each and every dharma, right there, is quiescent extinction; right there is the place of awakening.

Furthermore, the nature that is innately present cannot be set up. From the first it is neither ordinary nor holy, neither impure nor pure, neither nonexistent nor existent, nor is it good or evil. If it accords with the dharmas of defilement, it is called the realm of humans, the realm of devas, the realm of the Two Vehicles.

But if the mind's impurity and purity are both cut off, abiding neither in bondage nor in liberation, having no measuring of mind at all — conditioned or unconditioned, bound or liberated — then within birth-and-death the mind remains at ease. Ultimately it does not merge with the false and deluded dharmas, the illusory transformations and dusty toil, with birth-and-death, the five aggregates, the six entrances… It departs far from all these, depending on and abiding in no single place.

Bound by no dharma, going and staying without obstruction, passing back and forth within birth-and-death like a door that stands open.

If a student of the Way meets with the various sufferings and joys, with affairs that please or displease, yet the mind does not retreat or fall back; if one gives no thought to all manner of fame, gain, support, food, and clothing; if one does not crave any merit or benefit, is not caught up by the worldly dharmas, has no intimacy and no fondness, keeps the mind level before every suffering and joy — coarse robes to ward off the cold, plain rice to stay the heart, dull as if foolish, as if deaf, as if dumb — then there is some small measure of accord.

But if within the mind one is eager to study widely and know much, to seek merit and seek wisdom, all this is birth-and-death; it is of no benefit to the principle of the Way, and one is moreover swept along by the wind of conceptual understanding and sinks in the sea of birth-and-death.

The Buddha is one who seeks nothing. If one seeks, it goes against the principle — for the principle is the principle of non-seeking; if one seeks, it is at once lost; and if one clings, this is the same as the conditioned. Therefore the Diamond Sūtra says: "Grasp not the dharma, grasp not the non-dharma, grasp not the non-non-dharma." It also says: "The dharma that the Tathāgata has attained — this dharma is neither real nor unreal." One need only, all one's life, keep the mind like wood and stone, not swept under by the aggregates, the realms, the entrances, the five desires, and the eight winds — then the cause of birth-and-death has been severed; one goes and stays in freedom, bound by none of the conditioned causes and effects, fettered by no defilements.

And in days to come one will return, taking the freedom from self-binding as one's cause, to share in the work of benefiting others — using a mind free of attachment to respond to all things, using unobstructed wisdom to undo all bonds; this too is called prescribing medicine according to the illness.

Question: — As for now, having gone forth into homelessness and received the precepts, with body and mouth pure, and being complete in the dharmas — can one thereby attain liberation?

The Master answered: — One attains a small measure of liberation, but has not yet attained liberation of mind, nor has one attained liberation in all places.

Question: — What is liberation of mind and liberation in all places?

The Master answered: — Not to seek the Buddha, not to seek the Dharma, not to seek the Saṅgha, and even not to seek merit, wisdom, or conceptual understanding… When the attachments of impurity and purity are all cut off, and one does not even cling to non-seeking as being right, nor abide in the place where they are cut off, nor is fond of heaven or afraid of hell, when bondage and liberation are both without obstruction — this is body and mind and all places attaining liberation.

Do not suppose that gaining a small measure of purity in the precepts of body, mouth, and mind is the end of it. How could you know that the gateways of precepts, concentration, and wisdom — numerous as the sands of the Ganges — and untainted liberation, have not yet touched even a single strand of hair?

Strive and press onward! Investigate with valor and vigor! Do not wait until the ears grow deaf, the eyes grow dim, the face is wrinkled and the head is white, until the suffering of old age comes upon the body, until sorrow and grief cling fast and tears stream down, until within the heart there is fear with nothing to rely upon and no knowledge of where to go.

When that time comes, even to keep the hands and feet from trembling will be impossible. Even if one has merit, wisdom, renown, and gain, these cannot save one, because the wisdom of the mind has not opened; one only dwells on the realms and does not know how to turn the light back upon oneself, does not see the Way of the Buddha. The karmic conditions of good and evil of a single lifetime, all the evil karma of the six destinies and the five aggregates — whether joyful or fearful — arise from the craving and love of one's own mind, transformed into surpassing realms: houses, carriages, and boats, fine and gleaming, splendid and imposing.

Following only where craving and love are heaviest, one undergoes rebirth according to karma — as a dragon, as a beast, good or ill, not yet determined — without the slightest freedom.

Question: — What is it to attain a measure of freedom?

The Master answered: — As for now, attaining it is to attain it. If, toward the five desires and the eight winds, the mind neither takes up nor lays aside; if stinginess, jealousy, craving, and the notion of "mine" are all swept clean, and impurity and purity are both forgotten — then, like the sun in empty space, shining without conditioning; the mind moment after moment like wood and stone, thought after thought (in the practice of Chan) like quenching a raging fire — it is also like a great elephant crossing a river, cutting straight across the current without the slightest doubt. Such a person — heaven and hell cannot fetter.