kobutsu shin shôbôgenzô

Once, a monk asked the great master Jianyuan Zhongxing, "What is the old buddha mind?" The master answered, "The world collapses in ruins." The monk asked, "Why does the world collapse in ruins?" The master answered, "Better without my body." The "world" here means that the ten directions are all the buddha world; there is no non-buddha world. The state of its collapse should be studied throughout this world of the ten directions; do not study it in the self. Because we do not study it in the self, since the precise time of the collapse is one instance, two instances, three, four, five instances, it is inexhaustable instances. Each of those instances is "better without my body"; "my body" is "better without". Do not prize the present and take "my body" as not the old buddha mind.