Enlightened Reality and Worldly Phenomena
All things are set on a nonabiding basis. The nonabiding basis is based on nonabiding. If you can reach a thorough realization of this, then all things are One Suchness, and you cannot find even the slightest sign of abiding.
The whole of your present activities and behavior is nonabiding. Once the basis is clear to you, it will be like having eyes: the sun is shining brightly, and you can see all kinds of colors and forms. Isn’t this the mainspring of transcendent wisdom?
When you have complete trust in the mind and you are through to its true nature, then there is not the least bit of leakage in daily activities. The totality of worldly phenomena is the buddhadharma, and the totality of the buddhadharma is worldly phenomena – they are equally One Suchness.
How could it be there when you speak of it and not there when you don’t, or there when you think of it and not there when you don’t? If that is so, then you are right there in the midst of false imagination and emotional interpretations – when have you ever experienced penetrating realization?
When there is continuous awareness from mind-moment to mind-moment that does not leave anything out, and mundane reality and enlightened reality are not separate, then you will naturally become pure and fully ripe and meet the Source on all sides. If anyone asks questions, you answer according to the question, and if there are no questions, you remain clear and still. Isn’t this the essential guideline for really passing through birth and death to freedom?
When you have passed through the Last Word, then you won’t even need to “see through” speech and no-speech, transcendence and accommodation provisional and real, illumination and function, giving and taking away. Who recognizes the mastery of a great Zen teacher like Zhaozhou? To do this you must be a seedling of our house.
Source: Zen Letters: Teaching of Yuanwu
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