Zen Meditation | One Thought Turns the Light Inward to Reveal One’s Original Nature

Question: "You say that sudden awakening and gradual cultivation are the two paths, the way of all sages. If awakening is sudden, why bother with gradual cultivation? If cultivation is gradual, why speak of sudden awakening? Please explain these two meanings further, so that no doubt remains."

Answer: "Sudden awakening is this: when an ordinary person is deluded, they take the four great elements as their body and deluded thoughts as their mind. They do not know that their own nature is the true Dharma body, nor that their own luminous awareness is the true Buddha. Seeking Buddha outside the mind, they run like waves chasing waves. Suddenly a good spiritual friend points out the path; in a single thought the light turns inward, and one sees one's own original nature. This nature-ground has never had any afflictions; its undefiled knowing nature is complete in itself from the start, differing not a hair from all the Buddhas. This is why it is called sudden awakening. As for gradual cultivation: once you have suddenly awakened to your nature, you are no different from the Buddha. But the habits accumulated since beginningless time cannot be wiped out in one stroke. Therefore, cultivating in accord with this awakening, the work is gradually fulfilled through patient refinement; one nurtures the sacred embryo, and after a long time becomes a sage. This is why it is called gradual cultivation. It is like a newborn child: on the day it is born, all its faculties are complete, no different from anyone else. Yet its strength is not yet full; it takes many years before it at last becomes an adult."

Question: "What method lets one turn around in a single instant and awaken to one's own nature?"

Answer: "It is only your own mind—what further method could there be? If you contrive a method and seek all the harder to understand, it is like someone who cannot see their own eyes, assumes they have none, and tries to find a way to see them. But since they are their own eyes, how could they ever see them from outside? If you simply know you have not lost them, that is seeing your own eyes; there is no mind that seeks to see them—how could there be any thought of not seeing? Your own luminous awareness is just the same. Since it is your own mind, why seek further to understand it? If you seek to understand it, you will never attain it. Simply know there is nothing to understand—that is precisely seeing your nature."

Question: "Those of the highest capacity understand easily upon hearing it. But those of middle and lower capacity cannot help but have doubts. Please speak further of a method, to guide the deluded onto the path."

Answer: "The Way does not belong to knowing or not knowing. Set aside the mind that, still in delusion, waits for enlightenment, and listen to what I say. All phenomena are like dreams, like illusions and transformations; thus deluded thoughts are originally still, and sense objects are originally empty. In the very place where all phenomena are empty, luminous awareness does not dim. This very mind of empty stillness and luminous awareness is your original face. It is also the dharma seal most intimately passed down by all the Buddhas of the three times, the ancestral masters of every generation, and every good spiritual friend in the world. If you awaken to this mind, it can truly be said: without treading a single stair or ladder, you ascend directly to the Buddha ground. Step by step you transcend the three realms; returning home, you instantly cut off all doubt. You become a teacher of gods and humans. Compassion and wisdom support each other; you are fully endowed with the two benefits of self and others, worthy of receiving the offerings of gods and humans, each day worth more than ten thousand taels of gold. If you can be thus, you are a true great man—the one great task of this life is complete."