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Teisho December 4 (1992)
by Harada Tangen Roshi, Bukkoku-Ji
Mumonkan, case 33: No mind,
no Buddha.
No mind, no Buddha. A monk once asked Baso, “What is Buddha?” Baso answered, “No mind, no Buddha.”
Mumon’s commentary: If you can see into it here, your Zen study has been completed.
Mumon’s poem
If you meet a swordsman on the street, give him a sword.
Unless you meet a poet, do not
offer a poem.
In talking to people, tell them three quarters only.Never let them have the other part.
No mind, no Buddha. The other day, Baso said, “Just mind, just Buddha.”
Mind is Buddha. No mind, no Buddha. Just mind, just Buddha. Baso was very thorough, wasn’t he? The practitioner is quick to latch onto words. If you latch onto “just mind, just Buddha,” you are latching on trouble.
A monk once asked Baso, “What is Buddha?” It’s good. The answer is in the question. Baso answered, “No mind, no Buddha.” There is no mind, there is no Buddha. Sounds to be in the negative. Who is it who is making negative positive? Just mind, just Buddha. Just mind. Your looking off is a long, long held habit. What do you see, you regard as something happening outside this. What you hear, you hear it as something outside. You intend to hold on to things, to notions as fixed.
You see in terms of self and other, and you judge everything accordingly. This is the deluded mind, this is our usual way of perceiving. Just Buddha. Your looking away is jerked away. So that you can make the vow “I won’t look away.” Everything is Buddha. Mind is Buddha. Believe this and the vow to not look away would be strong.
Just mind. That’s not: I saw, I heard, I felt. Where is the room for the eye in just? Just mind. Just-ness. Just becomes clear. The habit of looking away is at once pulled out by the roots. There is no away. Everything is mind, mind is Buddha. But grasp at it and it becomes false, delusion, topsy-turvy perception. In a flash.
And so you are told let go of what you are holding. Let go your hold. If you grasp, you let go. No mind. Let go of attachment. Attachment to mind is Buddha. Everything is Buddha. Let go, body and mind dropped. Mumon says, “If you can see into it here, your Zen study has been completed.”
If you can see into “no mind, no Buddha”… have you let go of everything? That’s the question. Your Zen study has been completed. It clarified the great matter which is just here at your feet, clarified your true self. You know the answer to what is your true original self. You can see into it here, you’ve undergone the investigation into your true self – who am I? – and you’ve graduated. What happens once you’ve graduated, you sure don’t just lie on your back and gaze at the sky, taking it easy, looking off. Because you’ll be a person for whom it is impossible to look off. You carry on, refining your understanding. This is not a puny treasure, this treasure of yours. You polish and refine, polish and refine. The process is Buddhahood. You are allowed to, you are able to be here practicing now. Now, here, you are receiving the power of the group. You can sit this one round of zazen, you can do this one tantei. You can do this one doing. The universe is vast and timeless, beginningless beginning. Humans think, we think in terms of finite time and space. Even so, just look, this point in time, in this vast boundless universe, you are right here. Now. Able to do this one doing. No mind, no Buddha.
We always want to try to append something, we are habitually sticky, it seems. There is no appending anything, nothing to append here, no need to append. Somebody who is still taking it easy has asked me, “Why do we do zazen?” In spite of the fact that his legs are hurting, and that his whole involvement is leg pain, he can say, “Why do we do zazen?” I wager that there may be somebody here who is saying, “Well we do zazen because it feels good, because it makes our hearts calm.” In that sense he can see already, see that it’s useful. For thousand people, a thousand varieties, ten thousand people, ten thousand styles. Everyone is unique. 
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