The lay-disciple was silent for a while but finally said, “As I seek my sins, I find them unattainable.”
“I have then finished cleansing you altogether. You should thenceforth take refuge in the Buddha, Dharma, and Saṁgha (Brotherhood), and abide therein.”
“As I stand before you, O master,” asked Sêng-ts‘an, “I know that you belong to the Brotherhood, but pray tell me what are the Buddha and the Dharma.”
Replied the master, “Mind is the Buddha, Mind is the Dharma; and the Buddha and the Dharma are not two. The same is to be said of the Brotherhood (saṁgha).”
This satisfied the disciple who now said, “To-day for the first time I realise that sins are neither within nor without nor in the middle; just as Mind is, so is the Buddha, so is the Dharma; they are not two.”[f96]
He was then ordained by Hui-k‘ê as a Buddhist monk, and after this he fled from the world altogether, and nothing much of his life is known. This was partly due to the persecution of Buddhism carried on by the Emperor of the Chou dynasty. It was in the twelfth year of K‘ai-huan, of the Sui dynasty (A.D. 592), that he found a disciple worthy to be his successor. His name was Tao-hsin.[4.40] He asked the master,
“Pray show me the way to deliverance.”
“Who has ever put you in bondage?”
“Nobody.”
“If so,” said the Master, “why should you ask for deliverance?”