(BENDOWA XLII)

Once wehave been able to recognize that the mental essence which [is not subject to]birth and death exists in our own body, we see this as the original essence. Thereforethe body is just a temporary form; [haphazardly born here and dying], neverremaining constant. [But] the mind is eternal; it is unchangeable in the past,future, or present. To know this is called ‘to have become free of life anddeath.’ Those who know this principle stop the past [cycle of] life and deathforever and, when this body passes, they enter [into the ocean of originalnature]. When they stream into this ocean, they gain wondrous virtues likethose of the buddha-tathagatas. Even if we know [this principle] now, [ourbody] is still the body that has been been shaped by deluded [karma] in pastages, and so we are not the same as the saints. Those who do not know this principlewill forever turn in the cycle of life and death. Therefore we should justhasten to understand the principle that the mental essence is eternal. Even ifwe passed our whole life in idle sitting, what could we expect to gain? Thedoctrine I have expressed like this is truly in accord with the truth of the buddhasand the patriarchs, is it not?”

I [Dogen] say: Theview expressed now is absolutely not the Buddha’s Dharma; it is the view of the non-Buddhist [philosopher] Senika.According to that non-Buddhist view, there is one spiritual intelligenceexisting within our body. When this intelligence [encounters phenomena], it candiscriminate between pleasant and unpleasant and discriminate between right andwrong, and it can know pain and irritation and know suffering and pleasure–all[these] are abilities of the spiritual intelligence. When this body dies,however, the spirit casts off the skin and is reborn on the other side; so eventhough it seems to die here it lives on there. Therefore we call it immortaland eternal. The view of that non-Buddhist is like this. But if we learn thisview as the Buddha’s Dharma, we are even more foolish than the person whograsps a tile or a pebble thinking it to be a golden treasure; the delusionwould be too shameful for comparison. National Master Echu [Nanyuan Huizhong] ofgreat Tang Chinastrongly cautioned against [such thinking]. If we equate the present wrong viewthat “mind is eternal but [material] forms perish” with the splendidDharma of the buddhas, thinking that we have escaped life and death when we are[arousing] the original cause of life and death, are we not being stupid? Thatwould be most pitiful. Knowing that this [wrong view] is just the wrong view ofnon-Buddhists, we should not touch it with our ears.

Nevertheless, I cannot helpwanting to save you from this wrong view and it is only compassionate [for me]now [to try]. So remember, in the Buddha-Dharma, because the body and mind areoriginally one reality, the saying that essence and form are not two has beenunderstood equally in the [India]and [China],and we should never dare to go against it. Further, in the lineages thatdiscuss eternal existence, the myriad dharmas are all eternal existence: bodyand mind are not divided. And in the lineages that discuss extinction[impermance], all dharmas are extinction impermanent]: essence and form are notdivided. How could we say, on the contrary, that the body is mortal but themind is eternal? Does that not violate right reason? Furthermore, we shouldrealize that living-and-dying is just nirvana; [Buddhists] have never discussednirvana outside of living-and-dying. Moreover, even if we wrongly imagine theunderstanding that “mind becomes eternal by getting free of the body”to be the same as the buddha-wisdom that is free of life and death, [yet] themind that is conscious of this understanding still appears and disappearsmomentarily, and so it is not eternal at all. Then isn’t [this understanding]unreliable? We should [savor] and reflect [that t]he principle that body and mindare one reality is being constantly spoken by the Buddha-Dharma. So how couldit be, on the contrary, that while this body appears and disappears, the mindindependently leaves the body and does not appear or disappear? If there is atime when [body and mind] are one reality, and another time when they are notone reality, then it might naturally follow that the Buddha’s preaching hasbeen false. Further, if we think that life and death are something to get ridof, we will [be guily of despising] the Buddha-Dharma. How could we not guardagainst this? Remember, the lineage of the Dharma which [asserts that] “inthe Buddha-Dharma the essential state of mind [Uchiyama: the vast total aspectof mind essence] universally includes all forms,” describes the wholegreat world of Dharma inclusively, without dividing essence and form, andwithout discussing appearance and disappearance. There is no [state] – not even[life and death and] bodhi or nirvana- that is different from the essentialstate of mind. All dharmas, myriad phenomena and accumulated things [all themyriad phenomena in the who universe], are totally just the one mind, withoutexclusion or disunion [everything included and interconnected]. All thesevarious lineages of the Dharma assert that [myriad things and phenomena] arethe even and balanced undivided mind, other than which there is nothing; andthis is just how Buddhists have understood the essence of mind. That being so,how could we divide this one reality into body and mind, or into life-and-deathand nirvana? We are already the Buddha’s disciples. Let us not touch with ourears those noises from the tongues of madmen who speak non-Buddhist views.