A monk asked, ‘Master, why do you say that mind is Buddha?’
Mazu said, ‘To stop babies from crying.’
The monk said, ‘What do you say when they stop crying?’
Mazu said, ‘No mind, no Buddha.’
The monk asked, ‘Without using either of these teachings, how would you instruct someone?’
Mazu said, ‘I would say to him that it’s not a thing.’
The monk asked, ‘If suddenly someone who was in the midst of it came to you, then what would you do?’
Mazu said, ‘I would teach him to experience the great way.’
Master Ma.
(Chan Master Mazu Daoyi 709–788)
To this, master Jizai, commented, ‘Mind is Buddha’ is the phrase for one who wants medicine while he has no disease.
‘No mind, no Buddha’ is phrase for one who cannot do away with medicine when his disease has been cured’.
From ‘Zen Teachings of the Mumonkan’
Zenkei Shibayama
From: Zen’s Chinese Heritage:
The Masters and Their Teachings,
By Andy Ferguson, Wisdom Publications.
Image: Bodhidharma,
China, 17th century
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art
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