The fifth ancestor said: "This poem you made has not yet seen its own nature, but it is only a layman, and he has never entered the room. If you want to use it to seek supreme bodhi, you can't get it after all. The Supreme Bodhi must be able to know one's own mind and see that one's own nature is immortal. At all times, Nian Nian can see his true nature, and all the laws are unhindered; As long as we can recognize the truth as our own nature, all the natural dharmas are true, and all realms are as if they were immovable and have no birth or destruction. This kind of immovable mind is the reality that appears by being separated from the duality of the self and the self and the self. If you see it in this way, then you have the nature of the Supreme Bodhisattva. You go back and think about it for a day or two, and then make a side and send it to me, and if you can get in, I will pass it on to you. ”

Shen Xiu bowed and withdrew.

After a few more days, Shenxiu still couldn't do anything, his heart was in a trance, his mind was restless, as if he was in a dream, walking, sitting and lying down were depressed.

Two days later, a boy passed by from the mill, reciting Shenxiu's verse, and as soon as I heard it, I knew that this verse had not yet seen its own nature. Although I had not been taught, I had already understood the gist of the Dharma, so I asked the boy, "What are you reciting?"

The boy said, "You fang, you don't know, the five ancestors said that the most important thing in life is life and death; The master wants to pass on the mantle and bowl of Buddhism, so he ordered the people to make a side to see, and if he is careless, he will pass on the mantle and let him be the sixth generation of patriarchs. On the wall of the south corridor, Shenxiu wrote this poem, and the master taught everyone to recite it, saying that if you practice according to this poem, you will get great benefits. ”

I said, "Venerable Master! I have been here for more than eight months, and I have never walked to the Dharma Hall, so please ask the Venerable Master to guide me to the verses and pray. ”

The boy led me to the prayer and I said, "Huineng doesn't know the words on the wall, so please read them for me." ”

At this time, there was a Jiangzhou driver, whose surname was Zhang, and he recited it aloud. After listening to it, I said to Zhang Beijia: "I also have a poem, and I hope that Beijia will write it for me." ”

Zhang Beijia said: "You can also make a mistake, this is unusual!"

I said to Zhang Beijia, "If you want to learn supreme enlightenment, you should not despise beginners. Inferior people will also have superior intelligence; There will be times when people who are superior will have no mind. If you despise people, you will have immeasurable sins. ”

Zhang Beijia said: "You can recite the verse!" I write for you, if you get the Fa in the future, be sure to come and save me first, and please don't forget my words. ”

Here's what my verse says:

Bodhi originally had no tree, and the mirror was not a platform.

There is no physical aspect in nature, where does the dust come from?

After this poem was written, the disciples of the Five Patriarchs were all amazed and surprised, and they talked to each other: What a strange! You really can't look at people based on their appearance alone! Why did it not take long for him to become a bodhisattva in the flesh?

The Fifth Ancestor saw that everyone was making such a fuss, and I was afraid that someone would be unfavorable to me, so he wiped off the poem with his shoes and said, "It's also unseeing!" Everyone thought it was so.

The next day, the Fifth Patriarch quietly came to the Rice Workshop and saw me making rice with a stone tied to my waist, and said, "This is exactly what a seeker should do if he forgets his body for the sake of the Fa-rectification!"

So he asked me, "Is the rice ready?"

I replied, "It's been done a long time ago!" It's just that it's under-sifted. ”

The Fifth Patriarch then struck three times on the scepter with a tin rod and then left. I had already understood the meaning of the five ancestors, so at the third watch of the night, I entered the chamber of the five ancestors.

The Five Patriarchs covered me with robes so that others could not see them, and then personally preached the Diamond Sutra for me, saying that "the mind should be born without dwelling", and I realized the truth that "all ten thousand laws are inseparable from their own nature" under this sentence.

So I said to the Five Ancestors, "The original nature is so pure! Origins from sex are inherently born and destroyed! Origins are inherently full and sufficient! The original nature has not been shaken! Originally, nature could have given birth to ten thousand laws!"

When the Fifth Patriarch heard this, he knew that I had realized my own nature, so he said to me, "If you can't know your own original mind, even if you hear more about the Dharma, it won't be beneficial." If you can know your own true mind and see your own true nature, you can be called a husband, a heavenly teacher, and a Buddha. ”

When I received the Dharma at the third watch, and all the monastery people didn't know about it, the Fifth Patriarch taught me the Dharma, and instructed me: "You are already the sixth generation of the patriarch, you must take good care of yourself, spread the breadth of sentient beings, and pass on this Dharma's mind to future generations, and don't cut it off!" Listen to me:

All sentient beings plant Buddha seeds in the fields, and the Buddha fruits are born when they are ripe in the ground;

Ruthlessness is also no Buddha seed, no Buddha caste, no Buddha birth.

The fifth patriarch also said: "In the past, the Bodhidharma Patriarch came to China, and the inheritance of the Dharma Master was unbelievable to the world, so we must pass on this mantle as a certificate and pass it on from generation to generation. In fact, the Dharma is to convey the heart from the heart, and it is all about making people enlightened and enlightened by themselves. Since ancient times, the Buddhas have only taught the essence of their own nature, and the teachers have only taught the essence of their own nature. The mantle is the scourge of contention, which ends with you and cannot be passed on again! If the mantle continues to be passed on, it will definitely be life-threatening. You must get out of here quickly, lest someone will hurt you. ”

After hearing this, I asked the Five Patriarchs, "Where should I go to preach the Dharma and support the people?"

The fifth ancestor said: "You can stay in the place of Huaiji in Guangxi, and hide in the place of Sihui in Guangdong." ”

After receiving the mantle at the third watch, I said to the five ancestors: "I am originally from the south, and I have never been familiar with the mountain roads here, how can I get to the mouth of the river?"

The Fifth Patriarch said, "You don't have to worry, I'll send you there personally." ”

The five ancestors sent me to Jiujiangyi all the way and let me get on the boat, and the five ancestors rocked the boat by themselves. I said, "Monk, please take a seat!" The disciple should swing the oar. ”

The fifth ancestor said, "It should be me who saves you." ”

I said, "When you are lost, you should be saved by the master, and when you are enlightened, you must live by yourself; Although the name of the degree is the same, its purpose is not the same. I grew up in a remote place, I didn't speak properly, but thanks to Master's teachings, I am now enlightened, and I should only live by myself. ”

The Fifth Ancestor said, "Yes! Yes! In the future, the Dharma will depend on you to spread it. After three years, I will pass away, you have to cherish it, keep going south, and don't rush to say the Dharma, it is very difficult for the Dharma to flourish. ”

I said goodbye to the five ancestors and set off for the south, and after about two months, I arrived at the Great Yuling. Hundreds of people came after them from behind, trying to seize the mantle. Among them, there was a monk, whose common surname was Chen, named Huiming, who had been a four-rank general when he was at home, and had a rude temperament, but his heart was very positive in seeking Taoism. He was anxious to pursue me, and he caught up with me before anyone else.

I threw my mantle on the stone and said, "This robe is a token of the Dharma transmission, can it be fought over with violence?" With that, I hid in the grass.

Hui Ming arrived, took the mantle and did not move, so he shouted loudly: "Walker! Walker! I am here to seek the Dharma, not to take the mantle. ”

So I came out of the grass and sat cross-legged on the rocks. Hui Ming saluted and said, "I hope the walker will speak for me." ”

I said, "Since you are here to seek the Dharma, you must first remove all the dependent shadows in your mind, so that a single thought does not arise, and then I will speak the Dharma for you." ”

Hui Ming stood silently. After a long time, I said, "Thinking about good, not about evil, at this moment, what is the true face of the Ming Theatra?"

Hui Ming suddenly realized under these words, and asked again: "In addition to the secret words and secret meanings that have already been said, are there any other secret meanings?"

I said, "Since I have told you, it is not a secret." If you can look at yourself and find out the origin of your own nature, the secret is all around you. ”

Hui Ming said: "Although I studied under the seat of the five ancestors of Huangmei, I really did not realize my true face, and now I am instructed that only I know the warmth and coldness of drinking water. Now the walker is my master. ”

I said, "Since you say so, I will take the five ancestors of Huangmei as my teacher with you, and take good care of myself." ”

Hui Ming asked again, "Where am I going from now on?"

I said, "You can stop when you go to Yuanzhou, Jiangxi, and you can settle down when you go to Mengshan." So Hui Ming said goodbye and left.

Later, when I arrived in Caoxi, I was pursued by the wicked, so I took refuge in Sihui and hid in the hunter team for fifteen years. During this time, I often spoke to hunters randomly. The hunters used to keep me in the nets, and whenever I saw animals caught in the net, I released them all. When it was time to eat, I would put vegetables in a pot of meat, and when someone asked them, they would say, "I only eat vegetables on the side of the meat." ”

One day, I thought to myself, "It's time to come out and preach the Dharma, and I can't go into hiding forever." So I left the hunters and came to the Dharma Temple in Guangzhou, where I met Venerable Yin Zong who was preaching the Nirvana Sutra. At that time, there was a gust of wind blowing, and the flags fluttered in the wind, and one monk said that it was "wind movement", and another monk said that it was "flag movement", and the two people argued about it.

I stepped forward to them and said, "It is not the wind that moves, nor the flags, but the hearts of the benevolent." When the public heard this, they were amazed.

Venerable Yin Zong invited me to sit down at the top table and asked me about the teachings of the Dharma. He listened to my words, which were concise and thorough, and did not come from the words of the literary language, so he asked, "The walker must not be an ordinary person!" I heard a long time ago that the clothes of the five ancestors of Huangmei have spread to the south, could it be that you are the walker?"

I said, "Don't dare!"

So Master Yin Zong saluted me and asked me to show me the mantle of the five ancestors.

Venerable Yin Zong asked again, "Did the five ancestors of Huangmei give any instructions when they passed on the method of paying clothes?"

I said, "There is no instruction, only the nature of insight, regardless of meditation and liberation." ”

Venerable Yin Zong asked, "Why don't you care about meditation and liberation?"

I said, "Because when we talk about meditation and liberation, we have the two ways of being able to seek and what we seek, and this is not the Dharma. Buddhism is the only way to treat it without distinction. ”

Venerable Yin Zong then asked, "What is the only way to dharma?"

I said, "The Nirvana Sutra that the Venerable Master spoke about explains that Buddha-nature is the only way to dharma. For example, if the Bodhisattva asked the Buddha, "If you commit the four prohibitions, the five sins of rebellion, and the non-belief in the Dharma, will you forever break the Buddha-nature of the good roots?" The Buddha said: There are two kinds of good roots, one is permanence and the other is impermanence, and the Buddha nature is neither permanent nor impermanent, so it is said to be continuous, which is called the Dharma of non-duality; One is good, the other is not good, and Buddha nature is neither good nor bad, so it is called the Dharma of Non-Duality. The five aggregates and the eighteen worlds are seen by ordinary people as two, and intelligent people are well-versed in affairs, knowing that their nature is inherently indistinguishable, and that the indistinguishable nature is Buddha-nature. ”

When Venerable Yin Zong heard what I said, he was overjoyed, and he folded his palms together and said respectfully, "When I give lectures to others, it is like a stone and a stone; The benevolent expounds righteousness like pure gold. ”

So he shaved my beard and hair, and was willing to serve me as a teacher. I started the Dongshandun sect under the Bodhi tree planted by the three Tibetan hands of the wisdom medicine.

Ever since I attained the Dharma in Dongshan, I have endured a lot of hardships, and my life has always been in danger. To be able to be in this puja meeting with the bureaucrats, monks, nuns, and laymen today is nothing more than the Dharma relationship that has been formed over many eons, and it is also the good root that has been planted together by making offerings to the Buddhas in the past, so that we can hear the cause of this teaching. The teachings have been handed down by the saints of the past, and they are not the wisdom of my own people. Those who are willing to listen to the teachings of the ancient saints should first purify their minds; After listening to it, each of them cleared up his doubts, and there was no difference just like the saints of the past. ”

After listening to Master Huineng's words, the public was overjoyed and went away.