I do not understand this instant of revelation of reality, nor do you, nor does anyone else. Not even the Buddha vision sees it, so how can it be fathomed by human calculation?
There once lived a Chinese lay adherent to the Way named Tung-p’o, whose family name was Su and whose official name was Shih. His courtesy name was Tzu-chan. He was a very famous man, a real dragon in the ocean of letters. It was said he studied the dragons and nagas in the ocean of the Way. He sported freely in the depths and rose up to the high piled clouds.
Once, on Mount Lu, he was enlightened when he heard the sounds of valley streams flowing in the night. He composed a verse and presented it to Ch’an master Ch’and Tsung:
The sounds of the vally streams are his long, broad tongue; The forms of the mountains are his pure body. At night I heard the myriad verses uttered. How can I relate to others what they say?
When he presented this verse to Master Tsung, the master approved it. He was the Ch’an master Chao-hsueh Ch’and-tsung, who was the Dharma heir of Ch’an master Huang-lung Hui-nan. Hui-nan himself was the Dharma heir of the Ch’an master Tz’u-ming Ch’u-yuan.
Later, this lay adherant met the Ch’an master Liao-yuan and at that time Liao-yuan gave him the precepts and robes. Thereafter, the adherent always put on the robes and did meditation. He respectfully presented Liao-yuan with a sash decorated with priceless jewels. People of that time said, “This sort of thing is not possible for ordinary people like us to do, he must be very unusual.”
This being the case, how can we not consideer the circumstances of Su Tung-p’o's hearing the vally streams and becoming enlightened to be a great benefit extending down to the present time? It is deplorable, but it is almost as if something were lacking in people’s ability to understand the expounding of the Dharma in hese boundless manifesttions of the Buddha’s body.
If this revelation of the Buddha’s body is the preaching of the Dharma, then how are people today to see the forms of the mountainns and hear the sounds of the streams? Do they hear them as a single phrase? Are they just half a phrase? Are they myriad verses? How regrettable it is that there are sounds and forms in the strreams and mountains that we cannot understand. Yet it is a matter for delight that we have the opportunity to acquire the proper conditions for experiencing the Way in these sounds and forms.
The sounds are never stilled, and the forms never cease to exist. This being so, does this mean that when they are revealed the body is near and that when they are obscured the body is not near? Is it the whole body, or is it just half the body? Because the springs and autumns of former times have completely become mountains and streams, you cannot detect them in mountains and streams; because the times prior to this night have completely become mountains and streams, you can see them as mountains ansd streams. Today’s bodhisattva who practices the Way should befine his study of the Way in the knowledge that the mountains flow and stream does not flow.
As for that night when Su Tung-p’o was enlightened, he had, on the previous day, asked Master Tsung about the saying that even insentient things preach the Dharma, and while he had had no really significant experience from hearing the master’s explanatin, later that night when he heard the sound of the streams, it was as if the billowing waves touched the high heavens.
When this occurred, the sound astonished the lay adherent. But should we say it was the sound of Maste Chao-hsueh flowing? Perhaps Chao-hsueh’s discussion of the idea of insentient things preaching the Dharma had not really stopped, but was imperceptibly mixed with the night sounds of the valley streams.
Now, someone might say that it was “a single water,” or that it was the “ocean of oneness,” the oneness of the water of the Dharma and the water of the streams. If we examine the matter closely, was it the upasake who became enlightened, or was it the mountains and streams that became enlightened? If anyone has eyes to see, then certainly anyone is able to see the long, broad tongue and the pure body.