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A monk asked Baso, “What is the Buddha?” Baso replied, “Not mind, not Buddha.”
Mumon’s Comments
If anyone understands what Baso said, he has mastered Zen.
If you meet a sword master on the road, give him the sword.
Unless you meet a poet on the road, do not offer a poem.
If you meet a man, tell him the three quarters of the Way,
and never tell him the rest.
A “pagan” asked Buddha, “With words, with silence, will you tell me (the Way)?” Buddha silently kept meditating. The “pagan” bowed and thanked the Buddha, saying, “With the compassion you have cleared away the clouds of my mind and have made me enter into the awakening.” After he left, Ananda asked the Buddha what he had attained. The Buddha said, “A good horse runs even a shadow of the whip.”
Ananda was Buddha’s disciple but his understanding was not like that pagan. Now tell me, “How afar are the disciple and the non-disciple?”
Treading on the sharp edge of a sword,
Running over jagged ice.
Not climbing on the ladder,
Letting your hands off the cliff.
A traveling monk asked an old woman the way to Taizan. The old woman said, “Go straight ahead.” When the monk proceeded a few steps, she said to herself, “This monk with such spirit also goes off like that!” Afterwards, another monk told Joshu about this, and Joshu said, “Wait until I go and investigate the old woman.” The next day off Joshu went and asked the same question and the old woman gave the same answer. Upon his return, Joshu told the congregation of monks, “I have investigated the old woman of Taizan.”
The old woman sat in the tent and planned the campaign, but she did not know that there was the famous bandit who knew how to take the enemy commander prisoner. Old Joshu sneaked into her tent and menaced her fortress, but he wasn’t a real general. Indeed both had their faults. Now I would like to ask you: “What was the point of Joshu’s investigating the old woman?”
The question was the same,
The answer was the same.
Sand in the rice,
Thorns in the mud.
Daibai asked Baso, What is the Buddha?”
Baso answered, “The mind is the Buddha.”
If you fully understand Baso’s meaning, you are wearing Buddha’s clothes, eating Buddha’s food, speaking Buddha’s words, doing Buddha’s deeds, that is to say, you are Buddha himself. But Baso misled not a few people into erroring the principles of Zen. He does not realize that if we explain the word “Buddha” we must rinse our mouths for three days afterwards. If he is a man of understanding, he would cover his ears and run away hearing Baso say, “The mind is the Buddha!”
Under blue sky, in bright sunlight,
One need not search around,
Asking around what Buddha is,
is liking the stolen goods in one’s pocket and declaring oneself innocent.
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