The one who took it up after the Chan Master Bodhidharma was the Chan Master Huike. His lay surname was Ji, and he was from Wulao. At the ge of fourteen, he met Bodhidharma, who was traveling and teaching in the region [Henan]. Huike served him for six years, investigating the One Vehicle with pure energy and drawing near to the abstruse inner truth. Huike gave an oultine of cultivating the Path and of the essential method for illuminating Mind, whereby one truly reaches the fruit of enlightenment.
The Lankavatara Sutra says, "Shakyamuni contemplated in stillness, and thus left birth and death far behind. This is called, 'not grasping'." Of all the enlightened ones of the ten directions, past and present, there is not one who became buddha without a basis in sitting meditation.
The Ten Stages Sutra says, "Within the bodies of sentient beings there is an indestructible enlightened nature. It is like the orb of the sun: its body is bright, round, and full, [its light] vast and boundless. Because it is covered over by the layered clouds of the five skandhas, sentient beings do not see it. If you encounter the wind of wisdom, it blows away the five skandhas. When the layers of clouds are totally gone, the enlightened nature is shining perfectly bright, clear and pure."
The Huayan Sutra says, "It is as vast as the universe, as ultimate as the void. But is is also like a light in a jar that cannot illuminate the outside." Another simile is this: when clouds close in on all sides and the world is darkened, how can the sunlight be bright and clear? The sunlight has not been destroyed - it is just covered over and blocked off by the clouds. The pure reality-nature of sentient beings is also like this. It cannot become fully manifest precisely because layers upon layers of clouds - afflictions, the perceptions of false thoughts clinging to objects - cover over and block off the Path of the Sages. If false thoughts are not born, and you sit in silent purity, the sun of the great nirvana is spontaneously bright and clear.
A worldly book says, "Ice is born from water, but ice can block water. Ice is solid, whereas water flows." [Similarly,] falsity arises from the real, and falsity can lose the real in delusion. When falsity is ended, the real appears - the mind-sea is clear and pure, the body of reality is empty and clean.
Therefore, when learners rely on written and spoken words as the Path, these are like a lamp in the wind: they cannot dispel darkness, and their flame dies away. But if learners sit in purity without concerns, it is like a lamp in a closed room: it can dispel the darkness, and it illuminates things with clarity.
If you comprehend completely the clear purity of the mind-source, then all vows are fulfilled, all practices are completed, all is accomplished. You are no longer subject to states of being. For those who find this body of reality [Dharmakaya], the numberless sentient beings are just one good person: the one person who has been there in accord with This through a million billion aeons.
If pure energy and true integrity are not generated within you, it accomplishes nothing even if you encounter countless buddhas past, present and future. Thus we know that sentient beings save themselves by knowing Mind - the buddhas do not save sentient beings. If the buddhas can save sentient beings, since we have met countless buddhas in the past, why haven't we all become enlightened? It is just because pure energy and integrity have not been generated within. Unless the mind attains what the mouth speaks of, you will never avoid taking on form according to your deeds.
Thus, enlightened nature is like the sun and moon to the world. Within wood, there is [the potential for] fire. Within humans, there is an enlightened true identity; it is also called the lamp of the buddha-nature and the mirror of nirvana. The great nirvana mirror is brighter than sun and moon: inside and out it is perfectly pure, boundless and infinite.
Another simile is smelting gold. When the dross is obliterated, the pure gold is unharmed. When the forms "sentient beings" and "birth and death" are obliterated, the body of reality is unharmed.
Accomplishment in sitting meditation is experienced by oneself within one's own body. Thus a picture of a cake is not fit for a meal: if you speak of feeding it to other people, how can it satisfy them? Though you wish to remove the blockages of the past, instead you make the future offshoots even stronger. The Huayan Sutra says, "It is like being a poor man, day and night counting the treasures of others without having a single penny of his own."
Being learned is also like this. Moreover, those who read should only look at books for a while, then hasten to put them away [to test them with practice]. If you do not give them up, it is the same as verbal learning - this is no diferent from looking for ice by boiling water.
Thus, all the verbal explanations spoken by the buddhas speak of the unspoken. Amid the reality of all phenomena, they are speechless, but nothing is left unsaid. If you understand this, when one is raised, a thousand follow. The Lotus Sutra says, "Not real, not false, not thus, not otherwise."
I explain this True Dharma as it really is: ultimately it is not different from the real, profound inner truth. [Sentient beings] mistake the wish-fulfilling jewel for tiles and pebbles. When they empty out and realize for themselves that it is a real jewel, then ignorance and wisdom are equal and no different. You must realize that the myriad phenomena are all Thus. Out of pity for those with dualistic views, I take up a brush and write this. When you observe that your body is no different from the Buddha's, there is no need to search further for final nirvana.
When I first generated the mind intent on enlightenment, I cut of one arm and stood in the snow from twilight until midnight, not noticing the snow pile up past my knees, because I was seeking the Supreme Path.
In the seventh scroll of the Huayan Sutra, it says, "Entering correct concentration in the east, samadhi arising in the west. Entering correct concentration in the west, samadhi arising in the west. Entering true concentration in the eye, samadhi arising in the phenomena of form: it reveals that the phenomena of form are inconceivable and beyond the ken of devas and humans. Entering correct concentration in the phenomena of form, samadhi arising in the eye, so that mindfulness is not disturbed. We observe that the eye is unborn and has no inherent identity; we observe empty, still extinction without anything at all. It is this way, too, with ear, nose, tongue, body, and conceptual mind.
"Entering correct concentration in the body of a boy, samadhi arising in the body of a grown man. Entering correct concentration in the body of a grown man, samadhi arising in the body of an old man. Entering correct concentration in the body of an old man, samadhi arising in the body of a good woman. Entering correct concentration in the body of a good woman, samadhi arising in the body of a good man. Entering correct concentration in the body of a good man, samadhi arising in the body of a nun. Entering correct concentration in the body of a nun, samadhi arising in the body of a monk. Entering correct concentration in the body of a monk, samadhi arising in the stages of study, and the stages beyond study. Entering in correct concentration in the sravaka's stages of study and beyond study, samadhi arising in the body of a pratyekabuddha. Entering correct concentration in the body of a pratyekabuddha, samadhi arising in the body of a tathagata. Entering correct concentration in a single pore, samadhi arising in all pores. Entering correct concentration in all pores, samadhi arising on the tip of one hair. Entering correct concentration on the tip of one hair, samadhi arising on the tips of all hairs. Entering correct concentration on the tips of all hairs, samadhi arising in an atom of dust. Entering correct concentration in an atom of dust, samadhi arising in all atoms of dust. Entering correct concentration in the great ocean, samadhi arising in the great conflagration. One body can be countless bodies, and countless bodies can be one body."
If you understand this, when one is raised, a thousand follow. The myriad things are all Thus.