(died 850)
Huang-Po said to Pai-hsiu:
Buddhas and sentient beings both grow out of One Mind, and there is no other reality than this Mind. It has been in existence since the beginningless past; it knows neither birth nor death; it is neither blue nor yellow; it has neither shape nor form; it is beyond the category of being and non-being; it is not to be measured by age, old or new; it is neither long nor short; it is neither large nor small; for it transcends all limits, words, traces, and opposites. It must be taken just as it is in itself; when an attempt is made on our part to grasp it in our thoughts, it eludes. It is like space whose boundaries are altogether beyond measurement; no concepts are applicable here.
This One Mind only is the Buddha, who is not to be segregated from sentient beings. But because we seek it outwardly in a world of form, the more we seek the further it moves away from us. To make Buddha seek after himself, or to make Mind take hold of itself—this is an impossibility to the end of eternity. We do not realize that as soon as our thoughts cease and all attempts at forming ideas are forgotten the Buddha reveals himself before us . . .
That followers of Zen fail to recognize the Buddha is due to their not rightly recognizing where their own Mind is. They seek it outwardly, set up all kinds of exercises which they hope to master by degrees, and themselves work out diligently throughout ages. Yet they fail to reach enlightenment. No works compare with an immediate awakening to a state of mushin ["no-mind"] itself.
A story of Huang-Po (Obaku) and his disciple
Lin Chi (Rinzai)
links:
Excerpts
from The Principles of Transmitting the Mind
Commentary by Master Sheng-yen.
Poem and commentary translated by Guo-yuan Shi.
Ch'an Magazine
Huang
Po and the One Mind
by Mike Shu Ho Bonasso
from Cloud Water
Zendo
Revealing
the family shame
The tradition of Zen transmission
Zen Master Wu Kwang (Richard Shrobe)
from Primary Point
The Kwan Um School of Zen
see also his teacher:
Pai Chang(Hui Hai)
and his student
Lin Chi (Rinzai)
bibliography