36. Venerable ones, committing the Five Heinous Crimes, deliverance can be attained.

One monk asked: “What are the Five Heinous Crimes?” The master said: “To kill the father, to harm the mother, to spill Buddha’s blood, to break the peace of the Sangha, and to burn scriptures and statues, these are the Five Heinous Crimes.”

The monk asked: “What is the father?”

The master said: “Basic ignorance is the father. In the concentrated heart you cannot find the place of arising or ceasing. Like the echo which responds to emptiness and thus reaches everywhere. When you have nothing further to seek, this is called killing the father.”

The monk asked: “What is the mother?’

The master said: “Desirous coveting is the mother. If you enter the realm of desire with concentrated heart and see everything empty of forms and that nowhere is there anything to be attached to, this is harming the mother.”

The monk asked: “What is the spilling of Buddha’s blood?’

The master said: “In the realm of purity, if you do not give rise to any itch of interpretation, all is darkness; this is spilling the Buddha’s blood.”

The monk asked: “ What is breaking the peace of the Sangha?”

The master said: “If with concentrated heart you truly understand that the passions, these emissaries which bind you, are empty and without support then you break the peace of the Sangha.”

The monk asked: “What is the burning of scriptures and statues?”

The master said: “To see that the causal relations are empty, that the heart is empty, and that the Dharma is empty - and in one stroke decisively to cut it all off in order to transcend all, and to have nothing further to seek, this is burning the scriptures and statues.”

(The Zen Teaching of Rinzai - tr. Imgard Schloegl pub. Shambhala Berkeley)

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In this podcast:

•   The use of language in Zen

•   Turning the tables to attract attention

•   How Zen masters use all means to awaken their students

•   The attainment of the empty heart (mu-shin) as primary all other things as merely skilful means

•   Once attained then protecting the empty heart from becoming filled up once more.