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This Mind is Buddha
There is a well-known Zen story that is rather difficult to understand. It goes like this:
大梅禪師曾問馬祖禪師：「如何是佛？」
馬祖禪師答得快：「即心即佛。」
後來，馬祖道一禪師遣一僧人入山問候大梅禪師。
僧人說：「馬大師近日佛法又不同了。」
大梅禪師問：「有何不同？」
僧人說：「非心非佛。」
大梅禪師說：「任它非心非佛，我只管即心即佛。」
馬祖禪師知道之後，就說：「梅子成熟了！」
The following is my translation:
The monk, Big Plum, asked his teacher, Mazu: “What is Buddha?”
Mazu replied: “This mind is Buddha.”
On another occasion, Mazu sent a monk to visit Big Plum. The monk told him, “Master Mazu is now teaching something different.”
Big Plum asked, “How is it different now?”
The monk replied, “He is now teaching ‘Neither mind nor Buddha.’”
Big Plum then said, “Let him change his tune. I’d just stick to ‘This mind is Buddha.’”
When Mazu heard about this, he said, “Big Plum has matured.”
Why did Master Mazu change his tune? Didn’t he contradict himself? How can we make sense of this story? Today, I visited Teal Swan’s Instagram account and found something very interesting and insightful. She said, “One of the hardest things about being a…
