The Dharma Is Not Separate from Mind

Text

When Vinītaruci arrived in Vietnam and settled at Pháp Vân temple, the monk Pháp Hiền came to him and asked: 'What is the teaching the Third Patriarch transmitted to you in China?' Vinītaruci said: 'The Third Patriarch said nothing to me.' Pháp Hiền said: 'Then what did you bring south?' Vinītaruci held up one finger. Pháp Hiền bowed and asked: 'Is this the dharma?' Vinītaruci said: 'The dharma is this; your mind is this. Where is the gap?'

tr. Traditional exchange reconstructed from the Thiền Uyển Tập Anh; after Cuong Tu Nguyen's translation (1997)

license: public_domain

Attribution

• Speaker
  Vinītaruci

Lineage: Thiền

By Vinītaruci

• The Mind-Seal Has No Formproverb
• Nothing to Attainproverb
• Language Beyond Languageproverb
• Pass On Without Wordsproverb

From Thiền Uyển Tập Anh (Anthology of the Garden of Vietnamese Zen)

• On the Impermanence of Dynasties
• The Illusory Nature of Power
• Verse Composed in Vietnamese (Chữ Nôm)
• The Duty of the National Preceptor
• The King Tests the Third Patriarch
• On Receiving the Succession
• Silent Transmission

Sources

• contentCuong Tu Nguyen — medieval Vietnamese Buddhism scholarship

  Cuong Tu Nguyen

  Thiền Uyển Tập Anh, section on Vinītaruci and the founding of Vietnamese Thiền; after Cuong Tu Nguyen (1997), pp. 9–25

  Thiền Uyển Tập Anh (Anthology of the Garden of Vietnamese Zen): The Dharma Is Not Separate from Mind