From Section 13 through Section 23, the Sixth Patriarch speaks about calmness and wisdom as the foundation of his method. In this section he begins to speak from a little different angle. He is saying that practice and realization are two sides of one thing…
It feels like we choose to think our thoughts, but it isn’t so. To believe we choose our own thoughts is delusion; to believe they just come to us is enlightenment. When we say, “… this side of the shore, other side of the shore…” it is a deluded idea. We have to understand what we mean by this shore and the other shore. When the Sixth Patriarch says, “… water running forever…” he means that even though it has waves and splashes, it is the same water, always flowing. In this way, delusions and passions are the same as wisdom. If we stay on this shore, the other side of the water is the other shore. If we make this side the other side, the other side can be this side. We are always on the other shore. We think it is this shore. Afflictions resulting from passions are the same as wisdom. That which is passion is awakening. That which is passion is wisdom. It is like the Prajna Paramita, “That which is form is emptiness.” “Passion” is a strong desire, in process, like burning fire. You cannot stop it. But within wisdom, there can be a still state of fire, like candle light. This kind of calmness limits the fire, not too much burning and not too little. Yet wisdom is very big and calmness seems very small. From the point of view of fire, all burning is calmness but from our view it’s not calmness. When fire burns something that shouldn’t be burned, for us it is not wisdom, but for fire, it is wisdom. In this example, wisdom is a very religious term, a synonym of compassion. When you say “He is a wise man,” there is a delicate feeling in this word. If you say, “He is a clever man, very intellectual,” you can feel the difference. In these paragraphs, the Sixth Patriarch is facing the traditional background of Buddhism, expressed in The Diamond Sutra and the big volume of the Wisdom Sutra.
There are entrances and exits. Going in and also going out, zazen opens both ways. We cannot say which comes first. The problem is that as long as we have a narrow understanding of meditation, we sit at the gate and everywhere is outside. You feel that you have meditated only when you go to sit. But when the gate and the door disappear, there is no inside of zazen, no outside of zazen. You have the force to meditate wherever you go. The physical body becomes the gate, and meditation visits us. To accept it is how we do zazen. Sudden enlightenment means that whatever we are doing, this time is it. We cannot recognize it, but that is how we are living. Without enlightenment, we could not live any farther from now. When we see something, have some sort of understanding, even if it is a misunderstanding, it is an expression of enlightenment.