The Record of Shitou Xiqian
Master Shitou Xiqian of South Mountain was born in Duanzhou, Gao Yao County [in modern Guangdong Province]. His family name was Chen. His mother became a vegetarian before he was born. When Shitou was just a small child, he showed such self-restraint that he never caused any trouble to his nurses. At 20, people regarded him as reliable, since he always kept his promises. The local people in his home country were afraid of ghosts and often held sacrifices to appease the spirits. It became a custom in the area to sacrifice cows during the rituals. Shitou would go and upset their rituals and take the cows away. He ran off with several dozen each year. Even the elders of the village could not deter him from these cattle thefts. Later, Shitou went directly to Cao Xi [Huineng,the Sixth Patriarch] and became an informal student. After Huineng's death and following his wishes, Shitou went to see Qingyuan and became his student.
One day, Qingyuan said to Shitou, "Some people say there is news from Lingnan." Shitou responded, "Some people say there is no news from Lingnan." Qingyuan asked, "If that's so, where do the Da zang and Xiao zang scriptures come from?" Shitou answered, "They are all present right here and now." Qingyuan agreed.
Lingnan is a historical name for the area south of Hunan Province, which today is included in Guangdong Province.Da zang and Xiao zang are the larger and smaller collections of Buddhist scriptures. The Chinese Canon,first edited in 515 CE under Emperor Xiao Yan of the Liang Dynasty, is called Da zang jing in Chinese. The sense of the story is this: Shitou has been studying in the South,in Lingnan. Qingyuan asks what kind of scriptural knowledge he acquired there. Shitou says none at all: ultimate truth is found only in the present moment.
Shitou moved to South Peak Temple on South Mountain in the early Tian Bao years of the Tang Dynasty. He built a hut to the east of the temple on a big stone which looked like a platform. Thereafter he called himself Shitou Heshang, which means "Stone Monk."
South Mountain, or Hengshan in Chinese, is the name given to several forested hills and valleys west of Nanyue township in the south of Hunan Province. The area has always been famous for its Taoist and Buddhist temples, and solitary hermits living on the sides of the mountains. South Mountain was also the location of a Confucianist academy or university, one of the few such institutions in China. Shitou came here probably sometime after 720 CE, built himself a meditation hut on a flat rock next to Nan tai si, South Peak Temple. The temple still exists today, as does the rock where Shitou meditated and after which he named himself—you can see Shitou's rock here.
He set out to teach his students. "The key point of my teaching comes from Buddha. We concentrate on actualizing Buddha's insight, not on making progress in meditation. The mind is the Buddha. Buddha and common people, enlightenment and delusion have different names, but they have the same origin. You've got to study your minds first! Human nature in itself is neither good nor bad. Sages and common people have the same complete nature. There isn't some special way to apply this theory to reality. Your own mind reflects the entire world. Flowing water doesn't have some beginning or ending, nor the changing moon, nor the moon's reflection on the water. If you understand this, you have all that is necessary."
"The mind is Buddha" is a central teaching in early chan, ascribed in more than one source to Daoxin, the Fourth Patriarch. It does not mean that the human mind and the mind of Buddha are identical, or that Buddha-nature (Buddha-mind) is locatable inside the human mind, but rather that the human mind in its original and essential state is itself Buddha-nature. This teaching was strongly identified with Mazu, Shitou's great contemporary, and is therefore mentioned several times in The Record of Mazu. For example, a chan master approaches Mazu and says, "I've heard a lot about the chan teaching, 'the mind is the Buddha,' but I don't get it." Mazu replied, "Exactly the mind that doesn't understand—”that's it! There isn't anything else." In the biography of the Sixth Patriarch in Jingde chuan deng lu, Huineng says: "Your own mind is the Buddha. Don't be suspicious like a fox. Nothing can be established outside your mind. You are the original mind which produces everything."
At that time, his student Daowu asked, "Who understands the teachings of Cao Xi?" Shitou answered, "He who understands the teachings of Buddha." Daowu asked, "Have you got it?" Shitou said no. "Why not?" Shitou: "Because I don't understand Buddhist teachings." [Buddha's teachings are not to be understood through conventional understanding.] Daowu: "How then can I be free?" Shitou: "Who's holding you captive?" Daowu: How can I get to the Pure Land?" Shitou: "Who's making you impure?" Daowu: "What is Nirvana?" Shitou: "Who is it that places you in birth-and-death?"
"Liberation can be found where there is bondage, but where there is ultimately no bondage, where is there need for liberation?"—The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti, trans. Robert A.F. Thurman, p.76. The foregoing dialogue appears frequently in the Song-period chan histories, repeated in similar terms by different masters. It expresses the idea of original enlightenment, since only the conventional or relative mind sees enlightenment as something opposed or exterior to itself.
A student asked, 'What is the meaning of the coming from the West?" Shitou answered, "Go and ask a stone pillar." The student said, "I'm only a student, I don't understand." Shitou said, "I don't either."Dadian said, "People in ancient times said that it is wrong to believe in the Path and wrong not to believe in the Path. Would you explain this to me?" Shitou said, "There is nothing right or wrong, so what is there to explain?" Then Shitou asked, "Can you talk about the future without using your throat and lips?" Dadian said no. Shitou said, "In that case you can be my student."
Daowu asked, "What is the basic principle of Buddhism?" Shitou said, "You already have it." Daowu asked, "Is there a turning point upward?" [Is there a way to understand this further?] Shitou replied, "White clouds pass freely through the sky." [Against a blue sky of emptiness, phenomena pass without obstruction.] Daowu asked, "What is chan?" Shitou said, "This rock." "What is the Path?" "That piece of wood."One day Shitou was reading a book called Zhao Lun, which states that only a sage can incorporate the world into himself. Shitou was sitting at his desk and said, "The sages never think about themselves, and yet they contain everything inside them. Buddha can't be seen, but who says he has to come from somewhere? If you have the mind of enlightenment, the whole world reveals itself inside you. People's perception varies, so some will say 'come' while others say 'go'"
Zhao Lun is a book of philosophical treatises, much influenced by Madhyamika dialectics, written by Sengzhao (384-414 CE), a disciple of Kumarajiva. It was an enormously popular and influential work in the early period of chan.
Then he put the book aside and fell asleep. He dreamed that he was travelling across deep water, riding on the back of a tortoise with the Sixth Patriarch. When Shitou woke up, he interpreted the dream this way: "The tortoise represents wisdom. The deep water is the sea of the nature of all that lives. So by means of wisdom I travelled with the Sixth Patriarch across this sea." Then he wrote a poem called:
The Agreement of Difference and Unity
The mind of India's great sage
Was quietly confided from west to east.People's abilities may be dull or sharp,
But in the Path, there are no
Southern or northern ancestors.The spiritual source is bright and pure.
It flows and branches out imperceptibly.
To grasp at things is basically false,
But to concentrate only on principle
Isn't enlightening either.The senses and sense-objects in all their aspects
May interact or not.
If so, they affect each other mutually;
If not, they just remain separate.Colors differ naturally in quality and appearance;
Sounds can be pleasant or sad.
In the darkness, you can't tell up from down,
But in brightness, you can distinguish
Between pure and defiled.The four elements follow their own nature
As a child follows its mother: fire heats, wind shakes,
Water moistens, and the earth remains firm.
There are colors for the eyes and sound for the ear,
Fragrances for the nose, salt and vinegar
for the tongue.But according to the true law,
As leaves spread outward away from the trunk.
Whatever spreads out must come back to the source.
Thus "honorable" and "low-born" are nothing more
than words.
In light there is darkness,
but don't meet it as darkness.In darkness there is light,
but don't see it as light.
Light and darkness are opposites,
Like forward and backward steps.Each thing has its own function:
It's a question of how it is used.
Phenomena fit together like box and cover,
While principle impacts like an arrow
Meeting its target.Hearing these words, you should understand
Their source—don't make up your own rules!
If you can't see the path in front of you,
How will you follow the Way?Progress isn't measured by near or far,
But if you get lost,
Mountains and rivers will separate you.I humbly say to students of this profound teaching:
Don't waste time!
Many gods and spirits on South Mountain emerged to listen to Shitou's teachings. In the second year of Guang De, he was invited to teach at Liang Duan by his students, so that more people could have a chance to hear his Dharma teachings. He died in the sixth year of Zhen Yuan. A memorial tower was built for him at East Peak. It was named Jian Xiang pagoda—"Seeing the basic principle."
The Jian Xiang pagoda, erected as a memorial tower after Shitou's death in 790, is today a pile of rubble, overgrown by bushes and thorns. It lies about half a kilometer down the side of the mountain from South Peak Temple, just inside a Chinese military reservation, which was used in recent decades as a missile base. Shitou's body was mummified in black lacquer and placed in a burial urn inside the pagoda. Damaged by fire, it was brought to Japan during the time of the Chinese Revolution (1911), and it may be viewed today at the Soto zen temple Soji-ji in Yokohama.
IN ZU TANG JI, (COLLECTION FROM THE HALL OF ANCESTORS), WHICH APPEARED IN 952 CE AS THE FIRST OF THE MAJOR SUNG-PERIOD CHAN HISTORIES, THREE ADDITIONAL STORIES ABOUT SHITOU ARE INCLUDED:
When Shitou was born, the room was filled with a strange light. His parents were surprised and consulted a witch for an explanation. The witch said it was a good sign. Shitou was gentle and handsome-looking, but with a square face and big ears, thereby distinguishing himself from ordinary children. When he had grown older, he was taken to a temple to see an image of Buddha. His mother told him to bow down and said, "This is Buddha." After bowing down before the figure, Shitou looked at it for some time and said, "This is only a human being. If he is called a Buddha, then I want to be one too." People standing around were surprised at such talk.When Shitou had arrived at Nantai Temple, a monk saw him and went to tell Monk Rang. "The young man who came to ask you some questions recently and who was very impolite is now sitting and meditating on a rock over to the east of here." "Really?" "Yes, indeed." Then Rang told his attendant, "Go over to the east side of the mountain and tell him that a person of such firm intention would also be welcome over on this side." The attendant delivered the message. Shitou answered, "I don't care how often you ask me, I am not coming over to your side of the mountain!" The attendant returned with the answer. Rang said, "Nobody will ever get the better of this man."
Huai Rang was a student of Huineng and is called the "Seventh Patriarch" in some lineages. It is recorded that he was a teacher and abbot of a temple about a half-mile away from Shitou's temple, at the time Shitou arrived on South Mountain.
Shitou was digging weeds in the garden with Deng Yinfeng when suddenly they saw a snake. Shitou handed Deng the spade and told him to kill the snake. Deng took the spade, but then hesitated. Shitou took back the spade and chopped the snake in half. He said to Deng, "If you don't understand birth-and-death, how can you understand Buddhism?" Then Shitou started weeding again. Deng asked, "You can pull up these weeds, but can you uproot [can you understand fully] birth-and-death?" The master handed the spade to Deng, who pointed it at Shitou and made a threatening gesture. Shitou said, "You pull up roots only one way [you understand only one half of birth-and-death]."
