五祖弘忍大師者
Fifth Patriarch, Great Master Hongren
蘄州黃梅人也。先為破頭山中栽松道者。甞請於四祖曰。法道可得聞乎。祖曰。汝已老。脫有聞。其能廣化邪。儻若再來。吾尚可遲汝。廼去。行水邊。見一女子浣衣。揖曰。寄宿得否。女曰。我有父兄。可往求之。曰。諾我。即敢行。女首肯之。遂回䇿而去。女周氏季子也。歸輙孕。父母大惡。逐之。女無所歸。日傭紡里中。夕止於眾館之下。已而生一子。以為不祥。因拋濁港中。明日見之。泝流而上。氣體鮮明。大驚。遂舉之。成童。隨母乞食。里人呼為無姓兒。逢一智者。歎曰。此子缺七種相。不逮如來。後遇信大師。得法嗣。化於破頭山。咸亨中有一居士。姓盧名慧能。自新州來參謁。祖問曰。汝自何來。盧曰。嶺南。祖曰。欲須何事。盧曰。唯求作佛。祖曰。嶺南人無佛性。若為得佛。盧曰。人即有南北。佛性豈然。祖知是異人。乃訶曰。著槽廠去。盧禮足而退。便入碓房。服勞於杵臼之間。晝夜不息。經八月。祖知付授時至。遂告眾曰。正法難解。不可徒記吾言。持為己任。汝等各自隨意述一偈。若語意冥符。則衣法皆付。時會下七百餘僧。上座神秀者。學通內外。眾所宗仰。咸推稱曰。若非尊秀。疇敢當之。神秀竊聆眾譽。不復思惟。乃於廊壁書一偈曰。身是菩提樹。心如明鏡臺。時時勤拂拭。莫使惹塵埃。祖因經行。忽見此偈。知是神秀所述。乃讚歎曰。後代依此修行。亦得勝果。其壁本欲令處士盧珍繪楞伽變相。及見題偈在壁。遂止不畫。各令念誦。盧在碓坊。忽聆誦偈。乃問同學。是何章句。同學曰。汝不知和尚求法嗣。令各述心偈。此則秀上座所述。和尚深加歎賞。必將付法傳衣也。盧曰。其偈云何。同學為誦。盧良久曰。美則美矣。了則未了。同學訶曰。庸流何知。勿發狂言。盧曰。子不信邪。願以一偈和之。同學不答。相視而笑。盧至夜。密告一童子。引至廊下。盧自秉燭。請別駕張日用於秀偈之側。寫一偈曰。菩提本無樹。明鏡亦非臺。本來無一物。何處惹塵埃。祖後見此偈曰。此是誰作。亦未見性。眾聞師語。遂不之顧。逮夜。祖潛詣碓坊。問曰。米白也未。盧曰。白也。未有篩。祖於碓以杖三擊之。盧即以三皷入室。祖告曰。諸佛出世為一大事。故隨機大小而引導之。遂有十地．三乘．頓漸等旨。以為教門。然以無上微妙．秘密圓明．真實正法眼藏付于上首大迦葉尊者。展轉傳授二十八世。至達磨屆于此土。得可大師承襲以至於今。以法寶及所傳袈裟用付於汝。善自保護。無令斷絕。聽吾偈曰。有情來下種。因地果還生。無情既無種。無性亦無生。盧行者跪受衣法。啟曰。法則既受。衣付何人。祖曰。昔達磨初至。人未之信。故傳衣以明得法。今信心已熟。衣乃爭端。止於汝身。不復傳也。且當遠隱。俟時行化。所謂受衣之人。命如懸絲也。盧曰。當隱何所。祖曰。逢懷即止。遇會且藏。盧禮足已。捧衣而出。是夜南邁。大眾莫知。五祖自後不復上堂。大眾疑怪。致問。祖曰。吾道行矣。何更詢之。復問。衣法誰得邪。祖曰。能者得。於是眾議盧行者名能。尋訪既失。潛知彼得。即共奔逐。五祖既付衣法。復經四載。至上元二年忽告眾曰。吾今事畢。時可行矣。即入室。安坐而逝。壽七十有四。建塔于黃梅之東山。代宗諡大滿禪師．法雨之塔。
He was from Huangmei in Qizhou. In a former life, he was a cultivator who planted pines on Potou Mountain. He once asked the Fourth Patriarch, "Can I hear the Dharma of the Path?" The Patriarch said, "You are already old. Even if you heard it, could you widely spread it? If you were to come again, I could still wait for you." So he left. Walking by the water, he saw a young woman washing clothes. He bowed and asked, "May I stay the night?" The woman said, "I have a father and brothers—you should go ask them." He said, "If you consent, then I will dare to proceed." The woman nodded in agreement. He then turned his staff around and departed. The woman was the youngest daughter of the Zhou family. Upon returning home, she became pregnant. Her parents were greatly disgusted and drove her out. With nowhere to go, she hired herself out daily to spin thread in the village and at night slept beneath the public hall. In time, she gave birth to a son. Thinking it an ill omen, she threw him into a muddy harbor. The next day she saw him—he had floated upstream against the current, his complexion bright and healthy. Astonished, she took him up and raised him. As a young boy, he followed his mother begging for food. The villagers called him "the boy with no surname." He met a wise one who sighed and said, "This child lacks seven of the marks—he does not quite match the Tathagata." Later he encountered Master Xin and received the transmission of the Dharma. He taught on Potou Mountain.
In the Xianheng era, there was a layman surnamed Lu, named Huineng, who came from Xinzhou to pay his respects. The Patriarch asked, "Where do you come from?" Lu said, "Lingnan." The Patriarch said, "What do you want?" Lu said, "I seek only to become a Buddha." The Patriarch said, "People of Lingnan have no Buddha-nature. How could you become a Buddha?" Lu said, "People may be divided into north and south, but is Buddha-nature like that?" The Patriarch knew he was an extraordinary person, yet scolded him, saying, "Go to the threshing shed." Lu bowed at his feet and withdrew, entering the pounding room, where he labored between pestle and mortar day and night without rest. Eight months passed.
The Patriarch knew the time had come to transmit the Dharma. He told the assembly, "The true Dharma is hard to understand. You cannot merely memorize my words and take them as your own. Each of you, according to your own understanding, compose a verse. If your words and meaning secretly accord, then the robe and Dharma will be transmitted to you." At that time there were over seven hundred monks in the assembly. The senior monk Shenxiu was learned in both worldly and spiritual matters, and was revered by all. Everyone said, "Unless it be the venerable Xiu, who could be worthy of this?" Shenxiu secretly heard the praise of the assembly, and without further deliberation, wrote a verse on the corridor wall:
The body is the Bodhi tree. The mind is like a bright mirror stand. At all times diligently wipe it clean. Do not let it gather dust.
When the Patriarch was walking by, he suddenly saw this verse. Knowing it was composed by Shenxiu, he praised it, saying, "If later generations cultivate according to this, they will also attain excellent fruit." He had originally intended to have the scholar Lu Zhen paint the Lankavatara Sutra transformation scenes on that wall, but when he saw the verse written there, he stopped and did not paint. He had everyone recite it.
Lu was in the pounding room when he suddenly heard the verse being recited. He asked a fellow student, "What passage is this?" The fellow student said, "Don't you know the Master is seeking a successor and had everyone compose a verse of the mind? This is what Senior Monk Xiu wrote. The Master deeply admires it and will surely transmit the Dharma and the robe to him." Lu said, "What does the verse say?" The fellow student recited it for him. After a long while, Lu said, "It is fine, but it is not yet complete." The fellow student scolded him, "What does an ordinary man know? Do not speak mad words!" Lu said, "Do you not believe me? I would like to compose a verse in response." The fellow student did not answer and only looked at him and laughed.
That night, Lu secretly told a young attendant to lead him to the corridor. Lu himself held a candle and asked the official Zhang Riyong to write a verse beside Shenxiu's:
Bodhi fundamentally has no tree. The bright mirror is also not a stand. Originally there is not a single thing. Where could dust ever cling?
When the Patriarch later saw this verse, he said, "Who wrote this? He has also not yet seen his true nature." When the assembly heard the Master's words, they paid it no further attention.
That night, the Patriarch secretly went to the pounding room and asked, "Is the rice white yet?" Lu said, "It is white, but not yet sifted." The Patriarch struck the mortar three times with his staff. Lu then entered the master's room at the third watch. The Patriarch told him, "The Buddhas appear in the world for one great matter. Thus they guide beings according to their capacities, whether great or small. Hence there are the teachings of the ten stages, the three vehicles, sudden and gradual—these serve as gateways to the teaching. But the supreme, subtle, secret, perfectly clear, true Dharma-eye treasury was entrusted to the foremost elder Mahakashyapa, and was transmitted through twenty-eight generations. When it reached Bodhidharma, he arrived in this land. It was inherited by Master Ke and has come down to the present. I now entrust the Dharma treasure and the transmitted robe to you. Guard it well and do not let it be cut off. Listen to my verse:
Where there are sentient beings, seeds are planted. Because of the ground, fruit is born again. Where there is no sentient being, there is no seed. Without nature, there is also no birth.
The cultivator Lu knelt and received the robe and Dharma. He asked, "The Dharma I have received. To whom shall the robe be given?" The Patriarch said, "When Bodhidharma first arrived, people did not yet believe. So the robe was transmitted to show that the Dharma had been received. Now faith is already mature. The robe is a source of contention. It shall stop with you and no longer be transmitted. You should also hide far away and wait for the right time to teach. It is said that the life of one who receives the robe is as precarious as a hanging thread." Lu said, "Where shall I hide?" The Patriarch said, "Stop when you reach Huai, and conceal yourself when you meet Hui."
Lu bowed at his feet, received the robe, and left. That night he traveled south, and no one in the assembly knew. The Fifth Patriarch thereafter no longer ascended the hall. The assembly was puzzled and asked him about it. The Patriarch said, "My path has gone. Why ask further?" They asked again, "Who received the robe and Dharma?" The Patriarch said, "The one who is able has received it." Then the assembly realized that the cultivator Lu's name was Neng, meaning "able." They searched for him but he was already gone. Secretly understanding that he had obtained it, they all set off in pursuit.
After the Fifth Patriarch transmitted the robe and Dharma, four more years passed. In the second year of Shangyuan, he suddenly told the assembly, "My work is done. The time has come for me to go." He entered his room, sat upright, and passed away. He was seventy-four years old. A stupa was built for him on the Eastern Mountain of Huangmei. Emperor Daizong posthumously honored him as Chan Master Daman, "Great Fulfillment," and his stupa as the Stupa of Dharma Rain.