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 teaching for entering the Way of the Great Vehicle through sudden awakening?

The Master answered: — First, you must cut off all conditions and set aside the myriad affairs. All dharmas, whether wholesome or unwholesome, worldly or world-transcending, are to be wholly let go. Do not record them, do not remember them; do not be conditioned by them, do not dwell upon them.

Release body and mind, granting them complete freedom. 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 fog disperse the sun comes forth.

You need only put an end to all entangling conditions, and then the emotional attachments of greed, hatred, craving, grasping, the pure and the defiled, all come to an end. Toward the five desires and the eight winds the mind does not stir; it is not obstructed by seeing, hearing, awareness, and knowing; it is not deluded by any of the dharmas. Then naturally it is replete with all merits, replete with all spiritual powers and wondrous functions — this is a liberated person.

Toward all conditioned dharmas, the mind that does not quarrel or move in confusion, that neither gathers in nor scatters, that penetrates through all sounds and forms without becoming entangled, is called a person of the Way.

To make no use of good and evil, of right and wrong, to favor not a single dharma and to forsake not a single dharma — this is called a person of the Great Vehicle.

Not to be bound by any good or evil, by emptiness or existence, by the defiled or the pure, by the conditioned or the unconditioned, by the worldly or the world-transcending, by merit or wisdom — this is called the wisdom of a Buddha.

When right and wrong, good and bad, the reasonable and the unreasonable, and every sort of emotional attachment and conceptual understanding are wholly purified away, so that one can no longer be bound, and everywhere one is self-possessed — this is called a Bodhisattva who has just brought forth the mind and is able to ascend to the stage of Buddhahood.

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

The Master answered: — All dharmas, of themselves, declare neither emptiness nor form; of themselves they declare neither right nor wrong, neither defiled nor pure; they have no mind that binds people. It is only that people of themselves give rise to false and deluded bondage, fabricating ever so many kinds of conceptual understanding and apprehension, raising up ever so many sorts of views, and producing ever so much love and fear.

You need only clearly realize that the dharmas do not arise of themselves — that they all come into being through a single thought of one's own deluded, inverted clinging to appearances. Know that mind and conditions, from the first, do not come together; right there is liberation. Each and every dharma, right there, is tranquil extinction; right there is the place of awakening.

Furthermore, the inherent nature cannot be set forth. From the first it is neither ordinary nor sagely, neither defiled nor pure, neither empty nor existent, and neither good nor evil. If it resonates with the defiled dharmas, this is called the realms of humans, of gods, and of the Two Vehicles.

But if the mind's defilement and purity are both brought to an end — abiding neither in bondage nor in liberation, having no measure of mind whatsoever, whether conditioned or unconditioned, bondage or liberation — then within birth and death the mind remains self-possessed. Ultimately it does not blend with the false and deluded dharmas, with the illusory transformations, the toil of the dust, birth and death, the five aggregates, the six sense-entries, and so forth.

It leaves them all far behind, depending on and dwelling in no single place. Bound by no dharma, it comes and goes without hindrance, passing back and forth through birth and death as through an open gate.

If one who studies the Way meets with the various sorts of suffering and pleasure, with matters agreeable or disagreeable, yet the mind does not retreat or falter; if one gives no thought to any kind of fame, gain and support, food and clothing; if one craves none of the merits and benefits; if one is not entangled by the worldly dharmas, with neither intimacy nor fondness, level in mind before all suffering and pleasure — coarse clothing to ward off the cold, plain food to stay the belly — blank and as though foolish, as though deaf, as though mute, then one has a small share of resonance.

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

A Buddha is one who seeks nothing. If one seeks, then one contradicts the principle — for the principle is the principle of non-seeking. If you seek, you lose it at once; and if you grasp, then you are the same as the conditioned.

Therefore the Diamond Sutra says: "Grasp not the dharma, grasp not the non-dharma, grasp not the non-non-dharma." It also says: "The dharma which the Tathagata has attained — this dharma is neither real nor unreal." You need only, throughout your life, keep the mind like wood and stone, not swept and sunk by the aggregates, the realms, and the sense-entries, by the five desires and the eight winds — and then the cause of birth and death has been cut off.

Coming and going freely, not bound by any conditioned cause and effect, not held captive by the outflows, one day you will return and make of non-self-binding the cause, sharing in deeds of benefit; with a mind of non-attachment responding to all things, with unobstructed wisdom undoing every bondage — this too is called giving the medicine that suits the illness.

Question: — As one who has now left home and received the precepts, with body and mouth pure, and who is replete with all the dharmas — can one attain liberation?

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

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

The Master answered: — Not to seek the Buddha, not to seek the Dharma, not to seek the Sangha, and so on to not seeking merit and wisdom, conceptual understanding — when the emotional attachment to the defiled and the pure is wholly brought to an end; and yet not to grasp non-seeking as right, not to abide in the place of cessation, not to be fond of the heavens nor afraid of the hells, so that bondage and liberation are alike unobstructed — this is body and mind, and all places, attaining liberation.

Do not suppose that, having attained a small share of purity in the precepts of body, mouth, and mind, you are done. How can you know that the gateways of precepts, concentration, and wisdom, numerous as the sands of the Ganges, while the liberation of non-outflow has not yet touched even a single hair?

Strive forward with all your might! Investigate with bold and valiant effort! Do not wait until the ears grow deaf and the eyes grow dim, the face is wrinkled and the head is white, until the suffering of old age comes upon your body, grief and sorrow cling and tears stream down, the heart filled with fear with nothing to rely upon, not knowing where you must go.

When that time comes, even to keep your hands and feet from trembling will be beyond you. Though you may have merit and wisdom, fame, gain and support, none of it can save you — because the wisdom of the mind has not been opened, you only think of the various conditions, you do not know how to reflect back, you do not see the Buddha-Way. The karmic conditions of good and evil of a single lifetime, all the evil karma within the six destinies, the five aggregates — whether pleasure or fear — arise out of the craving of your own mind and transform into surpassing scenes: houses, carriages, and boats, beautiful and dazzling, splendid and resplendent.

Following only the heaviest weight of craving, in accord with your karma you take rebirth; whether dragon or beast, fair or foul, it is not yet determined, and there is not the least freedom.

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

The Master answered: — If now you attain it, then you attain it. That is, toward the five desires and the eight winds the mind neither takes up nor casts away; stinginess, jealousy, craving, and the notion of "what is mine" are all purified; the defiled and the pure are alike forgotten — just like the sun in the empty sky, which without conditioning shines forth. Mind after mind like wood and stone, thought after thought (in the investigation of Chan) as though saving oneself from a blazing fire — like a great elephant crossing a river, simply forging straight across the current without the least doubt. Such a person — the heavens and the hells cannot hold him captive.