Question Four:

Q:

Someone asks, “[The Hokke (Tendai) and Kegon SchoolTeachings] have now been transmitted into this country, are [said to be] bothultimate expressions of the Great Vehicle. Moreover, in the case of the ShingonSect, [the transmission] passed directly from the Tathagata Vairocana toVajrasattva, and so [the transmission from] master to disciple [without deviation]. Quoting the principles whch it discusses that “Mind here and nowis buddha”and “This mind becomes buddha,” [the Shingon sect]proclaims that we realize the right realization of the five buddhas in onesitting, without undergoing many kalpas of training. We can say that this isthe ultimate refinement of the Buddha’s Dharma. What is so excellent then aboutthe practice which you now solely recommend, to the exclusion of these other[practices]?”

A:

I say: Remember, among Buddhists we do not argue aboutsuperiority and inferiority of philosophies, or choose between shallowness andprofundity in the Dharma; we need only know whether the practice is genuine or [false].

 Some haveentered into the stream of the Buddha’s truth at the invitation of grass,flowers, mountains, and rivers. Some have received and maintained the stamp ofBuddha by grasping soil, stones, sand, and pebbles. Furthermore, the Vast and Great Word is even more abundant than themyriad phenomena. And the turning of the great Dharma-wheel is contained inevery molecule. This being so, the words “Mind here is buddha”are only themoon in water, and the idea “Just to sit is to become buddha” is alsoa reflection in a mirror. We should not be caught by the skillfulness of thewords. Now, in recommending the practice in which bodhi is directlyexperienced, I hope to demonstrate the subtle truth that the patriarchs havetransmitted one-to-one, and thus to make you into people of the real state of truth.Moreover, for transmission of the Buddha-Dharma, we must always take as ateacher a person who has experienced the [Buddha’s] state. It is never enoughto take as our guiding teacher a scholar who counts words; that would be likethe blind leading the blind. In this, the lineage of the authentic transmissionof the Buddhist patriarchs, we all revere wise masters who have attained the truthand [accord with enlightenment], and we cause them to dwell in and to maintain theBuddha-Dharma. That is why, when Shintoists of [the lineages of] yin and yangcome to devote themselves, arhats who have experienced the effect come to askfor Dharma, we give each of them, without fail, the means of clarifying themental state. That is something that has never been heard in other lineages.The disciples of the Buddha should just learn the Buddha-Dharma. Furthermore,we should remember that from the beginning we have never lacked the supremestate of Bodhi,and we will receive it and use it forever. At the same time,because we cannot perceive it directly we are prone to beget intellectualideas, and because we chase after these as if they were real things, we vainlypass by the great state of truth. From these intellectual ideas emerge allsorts of flowers in space; we think about the twelvefold cycle and thetwenty-five spheres of existence; and ideas of the three vehicles and the fivevehiclesor of having and not having are endless. We should not think that the leaningof these intellectual ideas is the right path of practice. When we solely sitin Zazen, on the other hand, relying now on exactly the same posture as theBuddha, and letting go of the myriad things, then we go beyond the areas ofdelusion, realization, emotion, and consideration, and we are not concernedwith the ways of the common and the sacred. At once we are roaming outside the[intellectual] frame, receiving and using the great state of bodhi.  How could those caught in the trap of wordscompare [with this]?

From: Bendowa – A Talk about Pursuing the Truth  – Nishijima-Cross [with some amendments according to Uchiyama]