Chapter 10 — Buddha and Dao
劍問蒼天 · Page 3 of 6
Such a method is the fruit of thousands of years of the Daoist school's hammering and refinement, and admits of no error or doubt whatsoever. Yet at this moment Zhang Qingyue's heart was like a storm, tossing and pitching without cease. All because what he had heard today was diametrically opposed to the set of oral formulas that the monk Puzhao had transmitted to him that day, and to its manner of cultivation.
On the eve of the Willow Temple Village massacre, when Puzhao transmitted the formulas to him, he had told him plainly that in refining the truth and tempering qi, one must sever every connection between oneself and the outside world and awaken to one's own nature—the so-called: all dharmas are empty of marks, neither arising nor ceasing, neither defiled nor pure, neither increasing nor decreasing; therefore in emptiness there is no form, no feeling, perception, formation, or consciousness; no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, or mind; no form, sound, smell, taste, touch, or dharma; no realm of eye-consciousness, even unto no realm of mind-consciousness; no ignorance, and no ending of ignorance, even unto no old age and death, and no ending of old age and death; no suffering, accumulation, extinction, or path; no wisdom and no attainment. (Note: from the Heart Sutra.)
Such profound and arid doctrine Zhang Qingyue could not at this time comprehend clearly, but that the two methods of cultivation were fundamentally different, that he could tell. His heart was a tangle of hemp, and he knew not what to do.
In truth, Zhang Qingyue did not know that the Taiji Profound Purity Way, to be sure, is the Daoist school's supreme wondrous dharma, but the formulas Puzhao, who had set a great vow upon him and staked a lifetime's hopes on him, had transmitted were likewise the Buddhist school's highest dharma—the Great Brahma Prajna.
The two methods, two utterly different ways of cultivation, must be traced to their roots.
The Buddhist and Daoist schools have long histories and in olden times held no dealings with one another; their arts of cultivation each arose from their own currents of thought. Take the Daoist school: its essence lies in the single word "Dao"—the so-called: the Dao begets one, one begets two, two begets three, three begets the ten thousand things. The ten thousand things bear yin and embrace yang, and through the qi of the middle they attain harmony. (Note: from the De Jing, Book of Virtue, Chapter 5.) The Daoist religion arose from Daoist thought, and even the threefold realms of the Taiji Profound Purity Way are named after the Jade Purity, Supreme Purity, and Great Purity of the Primordial Lord of Heaven, the Lord of Numinous Treasure, and the Lord of the Way and its Virtue in Daoist myth—what is commonly called the "Three Pure Ones." Daoist cultivation holds that one should breathe as one with heaven and earth, make the body one with nature, and with the body command nature's creative workings, transmuting them into great power.
The Buddhist school, by contrast, holds as its essence: "Let the mind arise without dwelling anywhere; all the ten thousand dharmas never depart from one's own nature." It is also said: How wondrous is one's own nature—in its essence pure; how wondrous is one's own nature—in its essence without birth or death; how wondrous is one's own nature—in its essence complete in itself; how wondrous is one's own nature—in its essence unmoved; how wondrous is one's own nature—able to bring forth the ten thousand dharmas! (Note: from the Platform Sutra, Chapter One, "On the Occasion of the First Discourse.") Buddhist cultivation emphasizes awakening to oneself, illuminating the five aggregates—"able, by a single prajna, to bring forth eighty-four thousand wisdoms." That is the principle.