"One day an acolyte passed by the threshing room reciting this
verse. As soon as I heard it I knew that the person who had written it
had yet to know his own nature and to discern the cardinal meaning.
1 asked the boy: 'What's the name of the verse you were reciting just
now ?'
"The boy answered me, saying: 'Don't you know? The Master said
that birth and death are vital matters, and he told his disciples each
to write a verse if they wanted to inherit the robe and the Dharma,
and to bring it for him to see. He who was awakened to the cardinal
meaning would be given the robe and the Dharma and be made the
Sixth Patriarch. There is a head monk by the name o Shen-hsiu who
happened to write a verse on formlessness on the walls of the south
corridor. The Fifth Patriarch had all his disciples recite the verse,
[saying] that those who awakened to it would see into their own selfnatures,
and that those who ~racticed according to it would attain
emancipation.'
''I said: 'I've been treading the pestle for more than eight months,
but haven't been to the hall yet. I beg you to take me to the south
corridor so that I can see this verse and make obeisance to it. I also
want to recite it so that I can establish causation for my next birth
and be born in a Buddha-land.'

"The boy took me to the south corridor and I made obeisance before
the verse. Because I was uneducated I asked someone36 to read it to
me. As soon as I had heard it I understood the cardinal meaning. I
made a verse and asked someone who was able to write to put it on
the wall of the west corridor, so that I might offer my own original
mind. If you do not know the original mind, studying the Dharma is
to no avail. If you know the mind and see its true nature, you then
awaken to the cardinal meaning?? My verse said:

Bodhi originally has no tree,
The mirror also has no stand.
Buddha nature is always clean and pure;38
Where is there room lor dust?

The mind is the Bodhi tree,
The body is the mirror stand.
The mirror is originally clean and pure;
Where can it be stained by dust?

"The followers in the temple were all amazed when they heard my
verse. Then I returned to the threshing room. The Fifth Patriarch
realized that I had a splendid understanding of the cardinal meaning.'"'
Being afraid lest the assembly know this, he said to them: 'This is still
not complete understanding.'