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三宜明盂 / 三宜明愚 Sanyi Mingyu (1599–1665)

七十世 三宜明盂禪師
三宜明盂 Sanyi Mingyu (1599–1665), Patriarch of the Seventieth Generation

佛祖道影白話解 Lives of the Patriarchs
虛雲老和尚編輯 Composed by the Elder Master Hsu Yun (虚云 Xuyun, 1840-1959)
宣公上人講於一九八五年六月二十六日 Commentary by the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua (宣化 Xuanhua, 1918-1995) on June 26, 1985
金剛 菩提海 Vajra Bodhi Sea (VBS): A Monthly Journal of Orthodox Buddhism, No. 316-317.

http://www.drbachinese.org/vbs/publish/316/vbs316p011.htm
http://www.drbachinese.org/vbs/publish/317/vbs317p012.htm

The Master was born in Qiantang. His surname was Ding. He studied under the Venerable Cheng of Yunmen. He entered the hall and did not speak. He hoped others would uplift him and rend his confusion. Suddenly Master Yunmen entered the hall and loudly said, "Put it down!" The Master had an awakening. Master Yunmen asked, "Why is it that when the cow in Huaizhou eats grass, the horse in Yizhou gets full?" The Master said, "Go ask the pillar outside." Master Yunmen replied, "When the tree topples and the vine dries up, what will you say then?" The Master said, "The white-capped waves are billowing in the Yangtze River." Master Yunmen replied, "I suspect that 'you' still exist." The Master presented a verse which has a line saying, "I run into him everywhere, and I recognize him." Master Yunmen made fun of him. The Master brushed his sleeves and left, saying, "All the flowers have wilted and spring has come an end, so I'm taking this road home to listen to the birds sing." After that, he would sometimes enter samadhi for days at a time. At first he dwelt at Longmen, and later at Huashan. In the year of kuiwei of Emperor Chongzhen's reign, he inherited the Abbotship at Yunmen. Later he served as abbot at Zhenji and Fanshou monasteries. During the Ming Dynasty, he was the abbot of over ten great monasteries. He passed into stillness in the year of Yisi, and his complete body was placed in a stupa at Xiansheng Monastery of Yunmen.

Commentary:  
This is a Patriarch of the 70th generation. He belongs to the Caodong Sect, and his name is Dhyana Master Sanyi Mingyu. Sanyi ("Three Abilities") refers to eating, wearing clothes, and sleeping. If you know how to eat, wear clothes, and sleep, then you are at ease. If you don't know how to do these three things, then from morning to night you are never at ease. You can't sleep, you can't eat your fill, and you can't decide what to wear. How frustrating! That's what the "three abilities" refer to--eating, wearing clothes, and sleeping. It means that when you eat, you should make the Three Recollections. The Three Recollections are also just the Three Abilities. 

The Three Recollections: 1. I vow to cut off all evil. I eat so that I can live. What am I living for? To cut off all evil. 2. I vow to cultivate all good. 3. I vow to save all living beings.

We should understand these Three Recollections and Three Abilities.

The "yu" in Dhyana Master Mingyu's name means bowl, and "ming" means "to understand." If you don't understand how to use your bowl, you'll fill your bowl with so much food that you can't finish it all. If you are greedy, you'll put a lot of food in your bowl. If you try to eat less, then you don't get enough. That's also not "mingyu"--not understanding the function of the almsbowl, which is used to hold the proper amount of food. And so, there's a lot of learning involved. Eating is not such a simple matter. It involves a great deal of learning, as do wearing clothes and sleeping.

If you know how to sleep, then you can sleep soundly and peacefully. If you don't know how, then after you fall asleep, you may be pressed down by a ghost, or hit by people until you cry, or scolded until you lose your temper. These are all cases of not understanding how to sleep.

If you notice what tastes good when you eat, then you don't know how to eat. If you notice what doesn't have flavor, you also don't understand eating. If you are unaware of what has flavor and what doesn't, then you know how to eat. Do you understand? You thought there was nothing to life--just eating and wearing clothes--really simple, right? Actually, these things involve a lot of principle. If you are greedy for good flavors when you eat, it's easy to get sick.

Today I want to talk with you about the essential Dharma-door. You all like to eat honey, right? "Honey" is also a term of endearment that men use with women, and women use with men, since it's something people like to eat. However, although honey appears sweet, it's actually the most poisonous of poisons. The reason we don't realize it is because it's a slow-acting poison. Even scientists haven't figured out that honey is poisonous, so they still eat it.

"If the scientists and chemists haven't made this discovery, then how do you know it?" you ask. You don't have to ask. Whether you believe it or not is up to you.

Three hundred years after you eat the poisonous honey, the poison will affect your soul and you'll turn into a honeybee so you can make more poison. Actually, you don't properly turn into a bee until three thousand years later. Three hundred years after eating honey, you start having thoughts like: I want to go around collecting pollen from flowers so I can make honey and give people some of this slow-acting poison. Once people eat honey, they are bound to become bees. What are bees? They are asuras. You see a swarm of poison-loving asura bees. They love to fight. If you bump into them, they'll sting you until your face and arms swell up, and you get sick all over. If they weren't that way, why would your body swell up like that? The poison that causes the swelling is also found in their honey.

Let me tell you something you've never heard or realized before. The love between men and women also contains a poison more powerful than anything. For example, homosexuals are contracting an incurable disease. They are also suffering from the acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), which is also incurable. Just the mere mention of it makes doctors want to flee and nurses want to quit their jobs. See how terrible it is! And it comes from the poison inherent in the love between men and women. When it causes men and women to get married, at least it is still the proper relationship of husband and wife which ensures the continuity of the human race. However, if it causes people to engage in homosexual behavior, then they are contributing to the destruction of the country and of the human race. That's why they contract this incurable disease, which no medicine can heal. No matter what mantra you recite, it has no effect on this disease. Even people with spiritual and psychic powers have no way to cure this dsease.

I have revealed a little bit about this news today. Whether or not you believe it is up to you. "How do you know that this poison acts up after three hundred or three thousand years?" you may ask. Don't ask me. I saw it in a dream.

The Master was born in Qiantang.  If you are an American, you might literally interprets the Chinese characters for "Qiantang" as meaning "money pond." "It must be a pond with a lot of money in it!" you think. That's wrong. Qiantang is the name of a place in Hangzhou.  His  lay  surname was Ding . This ding 丁 looks like two pieces of wood nailed in a T-shape. However, you shouldn't take my explanations too seriously, or you'll take a loss.

He studied under the Venerable Cheng of Yunmen,  Dhyana Master Yuancheng. The reason I explained his surname as being a piece of wood is because he went into the hall and sat there without speaking, just like a wooden block. That's where I got the idea. I always try to look for meanings like that.

He entered the hall and did not speak.  You see, I wasn't wrong. He came into the hall and acted like a wooden block. Whether you believe it or not is up to you.

He hoped others would uplift him and rend his confusion.  He was quite greedy, sitting there without talking or making a request, but just waiting for people to help him. He hoped someone would tear away his ignorance, shattering it to reveal his original face. He was greedy and hoped he could sit there and have everything given to him without his having to work for it. Suddenly  Dhyana  Master  Yuancheng of  Yunmen entered the hall.  Note that the text says "Suddenly Men entered the hall," not "Suddenly the door (men also means "door") entered the door." How could a door enter a door? It would become two doors. But since we're talking about the nondual Dharma-door, the text says he entered the hall. The author of this had some literary understanding, so he didn't write a contradictory sentence like "the door entered the door." And loudly- -as loud as the great bell and drum which are hit in the early morning and late at night- -said, "Put it down! " This command was like a peal of thunder. The Master had an awakening.  That peal of thunder positively rent  the Dhyana Master's confusion. And so he really gained some benefit without having to work for it. He had an awakening on the spot. He understood, because his confusion had been torn away. Master Yunmen asked, "Why is it that when the cow in Huaizhou eats grass,   the horse in Yizhou gets full ?" Huaizhou is in Henan Province. The cow there is eating grass that grows by the river. Why is it that the horse in Yizhou gets a full belly? This question is another test--it's adding more fuel to the fire. It's also like "drawing a snake and adding feet," being designed to   confuse him as to who ate what, saying something that he cannot understand. When you hear a question like this, you wonder what it's talking about, so you want to find out. You give rise to doubt, and when the doubt reaches an extreme, you become enlightened. This is the Dharma-door of the Chan school. The teacher gives you  something impossible to think about, bringing you to the state where "the path of language is cut off, and the activity of the mind perishes." Language is used, but not in a reasonable way, so you can't make any sense of it. How can a horse get full when a cow eats grass? A stupid person would try and try, but he wouldn't be able to get around the problem--he would drive himself into a corner. Once he finds himself trapped in a corner ith nowhere to go, he'll get enlightened. Do you understand the method now? The Master said, "Go ask the pillar outside. " Dhyana Master Mingyu's reply was, "You want to know why? Go ask the pillar which is standing outside in the open air." He was asked an unreasonable question, and so he gives an unreasonable answer. One person fired the machine gun, and the other tossed a hand grenade. Let's see who gets killed. Master Yunmen replied, "When the tree topples and the vine dries up, what will you say then?  When the tree falls over and the vine is dried up, where is the pillar then? Tell me that." The Master said, "The white-capped waves are billowing in the Yangtze River. " Master Yunmen asked him what he would say, and he talked about the white breakers in the Yangtze, coming up one after another in endless succession. His answer didn't fit the question. Since the question had been unreasonable, his answer didn't need to be reasonable either. All of you who are studying the Buddhadharma should memorize the thirty-six pairs of opposites that the Sixth Patriarch spoke about. He said if someone asks about existence, answer with nonexistence. Suppose someone asks, "What is existence?" Ask him, "What is nonexistence?" If he understands nonexistence, he'll understand existence. If someone asks about truth, answer with falseness. If he asks what truth is, ask him what falseness is. If he asks what 'dead' means, ask him what 'living' means. If he asks what 'man' is, ask him what 'woman' is. If you counter people in this way, you can defeat them all. Do you all understand? This kind of parrying over the Dharma is what the Chan School is all about. Basically there is no issue, but people create issues to argue about, and after they are done arguing, the issues are gone as well. Although the Dharma basically doesn't exist, it can be talked about. And so he talked about the white-capped waves billowing in the Yangtze River. Master Yunmen replied, "I suspect that 'you' still exist. " I doubt that you have truly understood and become enlightened. Your mark of self is still there. You haven't really understood. The Master presented a verse.  When Master Yunmen said this, the Master couldn't put it down, so he wrote a verse. He still hoped someone would recognize him. And so he presented a verse  which has a line saying, "I run into him everywhere, and I recognize him. " I run into him all the time, whether it's time to eat, time to sleep, or time to get dressed. And I recognize him. Who is he? He's just my inherent nature, the Buddha nature; he is no different from the Buddha. And so we shouldn't look down on ourselves and see the Buddha as being extraordinary for having realized Buddhahood. We are neither more nor less than the Buddha; we are the same as the Buddha, except that the Buddha has attained Buddhahood, and we have not yet done so. It's the same as how people are ghosts before they are born as people. Once born, ghosts are people. By the same principle, people are Buddhas and Buddhas are people. It's a very simple and ordinary matter. We don't have to say something fancy like, "I hope the Buddha will protect me." We can protect ourselves; we don't have to rely on the Buddha. If we depend on the Buddha, then we aren't being responsible people. We should try to be good and proper, and learn to be like the Buddha, not depend on the Buddha. That's my logic. We should learn to be a good descendant of the Buddha, not a disgraceful one. We shouldn't pretend to be what we're not. Master Yunmen made fun of him.  Basically the verse was correct and reasonable, but Dhyana Master Yunmen, the Venerable Cheng, wanted to test him further-put the heat on-by ridiculing him, saying, "Oh, you're really something extraordinary." Master Yunmen was belittling him and teasing him, but there was Chan meaning in his teasing. Once he communicated this Chan meaning, the Master showed that he couldn't take it.  The Master brushed his sleeves and left.