Chant the Buddha's Name with Single-Minded Sincerity, and Your Chan Practice Is Complete

So who is the one who chiefly investigates while reciting the Buddha's name? The inquiry "Who is reciting the Buddha's name?" was first raised by patriarchs such as Tianqi Benrui Chan Master, but why did they propose it? We need to explore the patriarchs' true intent. The reason is this: practitioners who recite the Buddha's name often fail to grasp the teaching that Śākyamuni Buddha offered of his own accord, out of thoroughgoing compassion. What is that teaching? It is "the mind makes the Buddha, the mind is the Buddha."

Not understanding this, they refuse to settle their minds on recitation. They keep eyeing the next mountain, straddling three or four boats at once. Watching from the side with hearts full of pity, the patriarchs step in and ask directly: turn the light around—who is reciting the Buddha's name? What are they waking us up to? They're waking us up to our wild, runaway hearts, so we can see that the very mind that recites is itself the Buddha.

Look at what Tianqi Benrui Chan Master says on this point: "If you recite the Buddha's name all day long yet don't know that your whole being is the Buddha, then just look—who is reciting?"

Every day the mouth recites, but you don't realize that both the mind that recites and the Buddha who is recited are entirely Buddha. Isn't this precisely what is meant by "the mind makes the Buddha, the mind is the Buddha"? If you can't penetrate it, what then? Here's a skillful means: if you can't grasp it directly, just look into who is reciting. Keep looking, and when you finally see, your mind opens, wisdom emerges, and only then will you truly trust that "the mind makes the Buddha, the mind is the Buddha." Once you trust this, you'll gladly recite with sincerity, aspiring to rebirth in the Pure Land.

This is why Chan masters, including Tianru Weize, declared: "Once one awakens, the aspiration for Pure Land rebirth cannot be turned back even by ten thousand oxen." That's exactly the point. Chewu Chan Master offered a similar teaching, saying the two phrases "the mind makes the Buddha, the mind is the Buddha" are more direct, more penetrating, and more supreme than the Chan teaching of "awaken to the mind, see the nature, and become a Buddha upon seeing the nature." Why? Because making the Buddha is easy; becoming a Buddha is hard. To "make" the Buddha, you simply recite the name or visualize the Pure Land's adornments of land and beings. You're making the Buddha, and the mind that can do this is itself the Buddha.

But to "awaken to the mind, see the nature, and attain Buddhahood upon seeing the nature"—that seeing is no easy matter. It demands leaving behind the discriminating mind, its mental activities, and consciousness. As the saying goes: "The spiritual light shines alone, wholly free of sense organs and their objects." That kind of Buddhahood is hard won. Yet if you can "make" the Buddha, you are the Buddha right now—and this silently accords with the wondrous Dao, skillfully entering the unborn. In every single thought of making the Buddha, Amitābha's ocean of perfect, universal knowledge arises from that very thought. This is what the sutra means: "Amitābha is the body of the Dharma realm, entering the minds of all sentient beings. Therefore, when you think of the Buddha, that mind is itself the thirty-two marks and the eighty excellent characteristics. The mind makes the Buddha; the mind is the Buddha; the Buddhas' ocean of perfect knowledge arises from the mind's thought." This is why Chewu Chan Master particularly stressed that if one can deeply penetrate "the mind makes the Buddha, the mind is the Buddha," then with sincere recitation one's Chan investigation and learning is complete—because every single thought abides in the Buddha's realm, every thought abides in suchness.

Master Ouyi teaches the very same thing here. When the Chan patriarchs raised the koan "Who is reciting the Buddha's name?" they were addressing practitioners who had never understood "the mind makes the Buddha, the mind is the Buddha." Their self-nature was veiled by ignorance—a long, dark night. But turn within, return to your own mind-nature, and recite the Buddha's name. The Buddha's light emerges and dispels the ordinary being's darkness, just as the rising sun ends the long night.

That was the patriarchs' heart, their original mind. Yet here we are today, still unwilling to settle our minds on recitation, still insisting that puzzling over a koan is the only lofty, superior practice. What is this like? It is like… the saying is wonderfully pointed: "Painfully clutching a broken roof tile to beat one's own birth-parents inside the house." Think about it: reciting the Buddha's name is "the mind makes the Buddha, the mind is the Buddha"—the mind that recites is already the Buddha. It is like knocking on a door, but it's a golden brick, a golden key that opens the door.

You set aside this golden brick that unlocks the boundless light and lifespan hidden in the name, and instead pick up a cracked, worthless roof tile for knocking. Let me explain the image: in old times, houses had courtyards, deep compounds, gate after gate. There were no doorbells, no phones, no appointments. If you wanted to reach someone inside, you had to knock loud enough to be heard, so you'd grab whatever was at hand—often a roof tile—and tap. That's a "door-knocking tile." But what if you had something far better to knock with? Then the door-knocking tile becomes a metaphor: it stands for you throwing aside the golden brick (the Buddha's name) and taking up the cracked tile of "Who is reciting the Buddha's name?" to knock with. So what does "beating one's own birth-parents inside the house" mean?

The "house" stands for this body of ours. Within it abides the tathāgatagarbha, the womb of Buddha-nature; the True Person of No Rank dwells temporarily in this body. This body is the manifested aspect our mind projects. So our original mind, our true mind, is the birth-parents, and this fleshly body born of karma is also the birth-parents—it is what the mind displays. When we recite the Buddha's name, every single recitation calls out to those birth-parents, thought answering thought in resonance. But now you don't understand this, don't believe it, and you still want to chase the koan "Who is reciting?" You're looking for the mind within the mind, riding the ox while searching for the ox, piling a head on top of your head. Isn't that exactly taking up a cracked roof tile to beat the birth-parents inside your own house? Think about it—there's simply no need.

If you insist on investigating "Who is reciting?" in the manner of Chan masters like Tianqi and Dufeng, you're failing to read the patriarchs' heart. If you don't see their intent and still insist the door-knocking tile is the supreme practice, aren't you arguing with those very patriarchs? That becomes unfilial conduct—not the way to go along with what they truly intended.

Consider Master Ouyi's later verse: "No need to investigate Chan, no need to study the teachings—one phrase of Amitābha, perfectly tuned." The six-character great name is the king of sutras, directly set on the unsurpassed true path; there's no need to weave Chan into the recitation. The Chan patriarchs saw this clearly: outside Chan, no Pure Land; outside Pure Land, no Chan. Chan is the Chan of the Pure Land; Pure Land is the Pure Land of Chan. Reciting Amitābha's name is itself the unsurpassed, profound, subtle Chan—there is no need to go investigating "Who is reciting?" That's why Master Ouyi stated so plainly: no need to investigate, no need to bother with it. Even today there are many people—like a fellow practitioner who came up to me at noon, sighing with great enthusiasm, "I love the dual cultivation of Chan and Pure Land." We need to be clear about what the patriarchs actually taught us.

The second, more specific question addresses those who refuse to settle their minds on recitation. This person asks further: what you say is wonderfully subtle and does align with the Buddha's mind and the core of Chan and Pure Land. But that only works for those who grasp the mystery and are willing to follow sincerely. What about those who don't understand and won't practice with sincerity? How can those who refuse to recite sincerely align with the principle? How can they correspond to "the mind makes the Buddha, the mind is the Buddha," which Śākyamuni revealed out of his thoroughgoing compassion? That's the question.

Master Ouyi's reply is full of compassion. "Alas!"—the sigh of one who longs for iron to become steel. He says: I have composed these passages precisely for those who are unwilling, to move you to recite the Buddha's name sincerely and correspond with Amitābha's compassion and the meaning of the Pure Land. This requires correct faith and right view. "You"—this means you haven't yet opened correct faith; you can't truly believe in "the mind makes the Buddha, the mind is the Buddha." If you can't believe this principle—that all dharmas arise from the mind—you'll cling to either self or dharmas. The two attachments, to self and to dharmas, you won't let go of.

If you can't let go, you're like stiff, unyielding cowhide: bend it slightly and it snaps with a crack, useless for making anything. Only supple cowhide can be fashioned into all kinds of leather goods. So we must begin with correct faith. Those "with eyes"—those of correct faith—have understood and revealed the principle of "the mind makes the Buddha, the mind is the Buddha." So of course they have no reason to light a lamp in broad daylight. They already grasp "the mind makes the Buddha, the mind is the Buddha"; when they recite, the Buddha's realm appears before them, like the bright sun shining everywhere. Since the bright sun fills the world, why light an oil lamp beneath it? There is simply no need to investigate. That's the first point.

Second, the "eyeless" ones have no wisdom and refuse to believe in "the mind makes the Buddha, the mind is the Buddha." Faith belongs to the domain of wisdom. Without wisdom, unable to penetrate "the mind makes the Buddha, the mind is the Buddha," you have no eyes. So there's no point in searching desperately for a lamp under the sun—even if you found one, you couldn't see it; all would remain pitch dark. So whether you've opened correct faith or not, whether you have eyes or not, there's no need to investigate.

This is why we cite a passage from the Bodhisattva Mahāsthamaprapta's Samādhi of Reciting the Buddha's Name chapter: "Without recourse to skillful means, the mind opens of itself. If sentient beings recollect the Buddha and recite the Buddha's name, they will surely see the Buddha now or in the future. Without recourse to skillful means, the mind opens of itself." "Without recourse to skillful means" means you don't need to borrow other methods—visualization, koan investigation, calming-and-insight meditation, and so on. Let all of that go. Just practice the single-practice samādhi, reciting Amitābha's name with one mind. The tathāgatagarbha-mind opens naturally. This is the supreme heart-essence revealed to us by Bodhisattva Mahāsthamaprapta—the Dharma Prince capable of bearing the Buddha's family business, the wisdom-attendant of the Western Three Saints, the right-hand attendant whose power opens this supreme teaching.

This supreme heart-essence of the Pure Land is a great mass of fire of the single-practice samādhi—the great prajñā wisdom manifested through the proper absorption of reciting the Buddha's name alone. "Great mass of fire" stands for this great prajñā wisdom. Once such words are uttered, anyone who dares challenge them is acting from ignorance, ordinary worldly views, and attachment. Anyone who touches this blazing mass of prajñā-fire is burned and left in a sorry state. So here we have powerful support for "no need to investigate." This teaching rests on the unsurpassed Pure Land principle of "the mind makes the Buddha, the mind is the Buddha," on the inconceivable merit of Amitābha's name, on the inconceivable nature of the mind that recites, and on the responsive interaction that surpasses the merit of every other skillful means. This is where faith matters. If your faith in the name's merit is shaky, you'll inevitably think: "Oh, sitting meditation is wonderful, koan investigation is even better, learning Vajrayāna is even more amazing." The moment you hear a new method, you're pulled along: "That must be better than reciting; that must be superior to reciting." You end up treating recitation as something trivial. That's why faith matters so much.

Many people today run from one method today to another tomorrow—a sure sign of weak faith. Those with firm faith are like Chewu Chan Master. Chewu, formerly Mengdong Chan Master before he received the name Chewu, summed it up in one line: "Having thought through every worldly and transcendent path, if I don't recite Amitābha, who else should I recite?" He had explored every worldly good and all eighty-four thousand transcendent Dharma doors one by one. Comparing them all again and again, if not Amitābha, then who? Reciting Amitābha's name is the most supreme practice of all.

Why? He had a firm scriptural basis. Until sentient beings attain Buddhahood, they must have thoughts. A single thought contains the entirety of the ten Dharma realms; each Dharma realm contains the ten Dharma realms; each Dharma realm contains the ten suchnesses: form, nature, substance, power, action, cause, condition, effect, retribution, and their ultimate beginning and end. This is called the "hundred realms and thousand suchnesses," and no thought escapes it. So our thoughts always fall into the ten Dharma realms. Since they do, we should consider: which realm is most worth falling into? The Buddha realm is supreme. How do we land in the Buddha realm? By reciting Amitābha's name. If you don't recite, you land in the other nine realms—usually the six paths of saṃsāra, more often than not the three evil paths. Comparing all the options, recitation is the most worthwhile.

This is why Pure Land patriarchs, drawing on a lifetime of practice and study, have all told us that recitation is supreme. Mengdong Chan Master himself awakened through Chan, but in the end he set Chan aside and held solely to the name. Don't think this holding to the name is some simple thing—it was where these patriarchs arrived after a long journey through every other method, finally choosing single-minded recitation of the name, and nothing else.