8.  The Enlightenment  of a Lay Believer Family

衆生諸佛不相侵

山自高兮水自深

萬別千差明底事

鷓鴣啼處百花新

Buddhas and mundane people do not intersect;

Mountains are high and waters are deep,

And they are independent of each other.

That all things are different

Signifies this truth loud and clear;

Birds are singing and flowers are blossoming.

That Buddhas and worldly people do not intersect means that they are independent of each other and enjoy their own life. Why is that?

Mountains are high in themselves;

Waters are deep in themselves.

The doctrine of Buddhism is not to be monopolized by the sŏnims. Whether sŏnims or mundane people, if they can be guided by correct knowledge and if they exert effort to enhance their  state of life, they will be able to attain the lofty aims of freedom and enlightenment. In the supreme world of truth, there is no difference between a sramaneraka and the ordinary world. What is important is that you open your mind. Appearances are not what count. Just because they are sŏnims does not mean that they are in a favorable position to become  enlightened. Just because they live in a village or town or city far from a monastery or temple or mountain cell, does not mean that they are to be seen as lowly. In brief, anybody with determination and courage, guided by correct knowledge, can be freed from the anguish of this world and enjoy the supreme state of happiness.

Let us take the case of a lay believer called P'ang chu-shih (龐居士) of T'ang China. P'ang  chu-shih (*chu-shih means layman) achieved a higher state than any other chu-shih.

He lived in the era of Ma-tsu (馬祖) and Shih-t'ou (石頭), two famous Zen masters of the T'ang Dynasty. At that time, many laymen visited the two Zen masters and learned from them. One day P'ang, summoning his courage, paid a visit to Shih-t'ou, offered three bows, and asked,

"Who is he  that  does not keep company with ten thousand kinds of truth?"

This was a very high- level question. On hearing these words, Shih-t'ou stuffed his mouth with his hand. With this, P'ang's mind's eye opened. He thanked the sŏnim for the instruction, said goodbye to him, and walked hundreds of kilometers to visit Zen Priest Ma-tsu. On arriving at Ma-tsu 's place, P'ang offered three bows and asked the same question as before.

"Who is he that does not keep company with ten thousand kinds of truth?"

Ma-tsu  answered,

"When you have exhausted the water of the Western River, come to me again, and then I'll tell you."

P'ang's mind's eye opened completely on hearing the response of Sŏnim Ma-tsu . It was the  state that the Buddhas had attained. He then became a disciple of Master Ma-tsu. On returning home, he donated his property and belongings to the village people, erected a small cabin by the brook, made a living selling jori (rice screens) made of mountain bamboo which he  cut himself, and practiced meditation in his spare time, together with his family members. He had a wife and one daughter. He did not make his daughter marry, but had her practice meditation so that her eyes could be opened.

One day, P'ang decided to confirm the state of achievement that his daughter had developed. He questioned her:

"The tips of thousands of plants are nothing but Buddhist truth."

His daughter Ling-chao (靈照) retorted,

"How trivial! You have practiced your whole life, your hair turning white and your teeth turning yellow, yet you hold such a trivial state of mind!"

How rude the people of the ordinary world will think his daughter was. However, if you have the knowledge of the truth of Buddha, you will know that his daughter was not rude. Evaluation through a blitzkrieg argument has no mundane bounds or restraints.

P'ang then asked of his daughter,

"What do you think?"

"The tips of thousands of plants are nothing but Buddhist truth."

She thus uttered the same statement that her father had just expressed, yet she had said that her father's statement was very trite. You must understand that the seemingly same statements expressed by father and daughter were not the same but utterly different, like heaven and earth.

The rumor that the whole P'ang  family had become enlightened and was leading a lofty life spread like wild fire. Many dharma seekers visited the family. To make a distinction between the monastery and the ordinary world , euphemistically the mountain and the village, is not essential nor even important. The value of the Buddhist law, the dharma, does not consist in the headgear or costumes, but in the eyes of wisdom which is unchangeable for hundreds of thousands of years to come.

One day, Zen priest T'an-hsia T'ian-jan (丹霞 天然: 738-824) paid a visit to the P'ang family. At the time, Liang-chao was washing vegetables, at the well near the gate. T'ian-jan asked her of her father's whereabouts, saying,

"Is your father in there?"

Hearing this, she stopped washing the grass, stood  up put her left hand upon the right, and remained motionless. The priest, figuring her out, but wanting to see her next response, asked the same question again:

"Is your father in there?"

Hearing this, Liang-chao, let go of her knotted hands, and with the box of  grass on her head, entered the house. Zen Master T'ian-jan, seeing this, returned to the monastery.

You must understand the meaning, loud and clear, which Liang-chao tried to convey to the caller; you need to try to hear and understand these types of messages. Unless we are  capable of understanding these unspoken signs, we can't approach the truth. You must understand that the beauty of the world was not that of Princess Yang (楊貴妃) of T'ang China, but rather that of Liang-chao, who had been equipped with the capacity of expressing the essence of things through pointed utterances. Liang-chao deserves to be ranked with the Buddhas and innumerable Zen masters.

One day, when P'ang was resting with his family members, all of a sudden he said,

"It's so difficult. It's like spreading a gallon of oil on the branches of a tree."

Hearing this, Posal (laywoman) P'ang, his wife, retorted,

"It's so easy. There's every bit of Buddhist truth on the tips of hundreds of plants."

Hearing the exchange between her parents, interrupting just like stone fire and lightning, Liang-chao said,

"Not so easy, not so difficult! It's like sleeping when tired; it's like drinking tea when thirsty."

They are a really great family. He is a great believer and his wife and daughter are really great laywomen. They are not inferior to Buddhas or Zen practitioners.

One day P'ang was practicing meditation, when he told his daughter who had just returned that he would enter nirvana at noon. He said to her,

"Go and see where the sun is."

After a while, returning from outside, she said to her father,

"Father, the solar eclipse is in progress. I can't see the sun!"

Hearing this, he asked again,

"What? Is the solar eclipse in progress? Let me check it."

He then left the room to check the position of the sun.

Making use of her father's exit, she took his meditation seat, usurped this chance to enter nirvana, and eliminated the anguish of her body. How great! On returning and finding that his daughter had taken his place in nirvana, P'ang said,

"You deceived me, bad girl! But I'm proud; you are great, my daughter!"

P'ang then had to do the funeral rite of jhapeti, the cremation of his daughter, and therefore postponed his own departure from the world. After a week passed, he departed from his body of anguish while in the sitting posture (i. e. he attained enlightenment). An elderly woman visited P'ang 's house, but when there was no response to her repeated knocks, she opened the door  and found that P'ang  had entered nirvana in the sitting position. While uprooting weeds in the vegetable garden, the posal, too, on hearing that her husband had left this world by unclothing the body, also unclothed her body.

How joyous and how unwavering! This is the potential that Zen Buddhists can enjoy and manifest--to live a clean life and then end it with unfaltering determination.

All people, that is, thousands of millions of people, can live like P'ang's family, if they practice meditation the right way and open the eyes of truth.

Do you understand the P'ang  family? What does P'ang's  remark mean, "It's so difficult. It's just like spreading one gallon of oil on the branches of a tree?" What does his wife's retort mean: "It's so easy. The tips of hundreds of plants are the Buddhist truth." And finally, what does his daughter's compromising statement mean: "It's not so difficult. It's not so easy. It's just like sleeping when you are tired, and drinking tea when you are thirsty." All the doctrines of Buddhist truth lie within these three statements. If you can clarify their meaning, then you will rank with all the preceding Buddhas and Zen masters.

Let me roll up the sleeves of the kasaya and acknowledge the high achievement made by the P'ang  family, by making a dharma offering to the congregation, and by making an offering of the pure truth to  all the preceding Buddhas. If I had been on the scene when each P'ang  family member uttered the words of his or her enlightenment, I would have struck him/her with my chujangja thirty times. If there is anyone who has doubts about the motive of administering these strikes on the P'ang family members, saying, "Why does Your Highness Patriarch Chinje confer chujangja strikes on those beautiful people who brightened the lanterns of Buddhist dharma?", I would say,

來年更有新條在

惱亂春風卒未休

When new branches sprout,

They can never take a calm rest,

Because the spring wind is so disturbing!

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