When Bodhidharma came rom the West to China, he carried a robe, bowl, and the Lankavatara Sutra. He passed these on to Huike, the Second Patriarch, but what he transmitted wasn’t fabric, or a receptacle, or a sheaf of paper. He transmitted Mind. But he still gave Huike the book, the bowl, and the robe. He may have been done with them, but Huike still needed them.
Bodhidharma said, “Reciting Sutras results in good memory; Keeping precepts results in a good rebirth; And making offering results in good karma; Yet, none of those result in finding the Buddha.” He didn’t say not to do these things, just that the product of doing them is not seeing your True Buddha Nature. It is said that Ananda, the Buddha’s attendant and source of the Sutras (“Thus have I heard”) didn’t achieve liberation because he grasped only the words of the Buddha, not the Mind of the Buddha.
Much of what we think of as Zen comes from the Lankavatara, and other teachings of the Buddha collected in the Sutras. But having a good memory of what is in the Sutras doesn’t necessarily mean that the marrow of the message has been attained. The word-head has to be grabbed and hung onto like when riding a wild horse. Grabbing the tail only results in disaster.
We can’t disregard the teachings of the Buddha and Masters.
Once we’ve internalized them to the point where they are no longer words and concepts, then we can say we’re liberated. We have to listen for that right word, the sound of a rock hitting a stick, or a baseball hitting a bat, and when we do, there is no need for words or concepts. It happens before the first thought, and Mind has been transmitted.
But until we have reached that point, we’re still stuck in the middle of the river of our discontent, and are still in need of the raft to get across, and the words we hear and read are the raft. We may need to use that raft countless times not only for ourselves, but like Bodhidharma and Huike, to help ferry all sentient beings until they have also reached the shore of liberation.
Haengdal Citta gave the Dharma talk March 20, 2024.
