HUANG-PO (?-849)

Mind is everything; mind is nothing. Mind creates time and space, mind contains a billion galaxies, mind lifts a spoon of oatmeal to its mouth at breakfast. Mind is life and death, God and devil, you and I; mind stands at the top of the mountain; mind cries for its mother’s breast. Mind pulls the universe out of a top hat, bows to its own applause, and walks off the stage, grinning.

All Buddhas and all ordinary beings are nothing but the one mind. This mind is beginningless and endless, unborn and indestructible. It has no color or shape, neither exists nor doesn’t exist, isn’t old or new, long or short, large or small, since it transcends all measures, limits, names, and comparisons. It is what you see in front of you. Start to think about it and immediately you are mistaken. It is like the boundless void, which can’t be fathomed or measured. The one mind is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between Buddha and ordinary beings, except that ordinary beings are attached to forms and thus seek for Buddhahood outside themselves. By this very seeking they lose it, since they are using Buddha to seek for Buddha, using mind to seek for mind. Even if they continue for a million eons, they will never be able to find it. They don’t know that all they have to do is put a stop to conceptual thinking, and the Buddha will appear before them, because this mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings. It is not any less for being manifested in ordinary beings, nor any greater for being manifested in Buddhas.

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This pure mind, which is the source of all things, shines forever with the radiance of its own perfection. But most people are not aware of it, and think that mind is just the faculty that sees, hears, feels, and knows. Blinded by their own sight, hearing, feeling, and knowing, they don’t perceive the radiance of the source. If they could eliminate all conceptual thinking, this source would appear, like the sun rising through the empty sky and illuminating the whole universe. Therefore, you students of the Tao who seek to understand through seeing, hearing, feeling, and knowing, when your perceptions are cut off, your way to mind will be cut off and you will find nowhere to enter. Just realize that although mind is manifested in these perceptions, it is neither part of them nor separate from them. You shouldn’t try to analyze these perceptions, or think about them at all; but you shouldn’t seek the one mind apart from them. Don’t hold on to them or leave them behind or dwell in them or reject them. Above, below, and around you, all things spontaneously exist, because there is nowhere outside the Buddha mind.

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When most people hear that the Buddhas transmit the teaching of the one mind, they suppose that there is something to be attained or realized apart from mind, and they use mind to seek the teaching, not realizing that mind and the object of their search are one. Mind can’t be used to seek mind; if it is, even after millions of eons have gone by, the search will still not be over. Suppose that a warrior forgot he was already wearing his pearl on his forehead, and sought for it somewhere else: he might search through the whole world without finding it. But if someone simply pointed it out to him, the warrior would immediately realize that the pearl had been there all the time. In the same way, if you students of the Tao are mistaken about your own mind, not recognizing that it is the Buddha, you will look for it somewhere else, indulging in various practices and hoping to attain something. But even after eons of diligent searching, you won’t be able to attain the Tao. These methods can’t be compared to the elimination of conceptual thinking, when you understand there is nothing that has absolute existence, nothing to hold on to, nothing to depend on, nothing to dwell in, nothing subjective or objective. When you prevent the rise of conceptual thinking, you will be free men, and this just means you will realize that the Buddha has always existed in your own mind. Eons of striving will turn out to be wasted effort; just as, when the warrior found his pearl, he simply found what had been hanging on his forehead all the time, and his discovery had nothing to do with his efforts to find it elsewhere. Therefore the Buddha said, “I didn’t attain a single thing through Supreme Perfect Enlightenment.” It was because he was concerned that people wouldn’t believe this that he taught by less direct methods. This statement of his isn’t idle chatter; it expresses the highest truth.

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