Certainly Other Than Buddha

Q: What is the Buddha?

A: Your Mind is the Buddha. The Buddha is Mind. Mind and Buddha are indivisible. Therefore it is written: “That which is Mind is the Buddha; if it is other than Mind, it is certainly other than Buddha.”

Q: At the moment of Enlightenment, where is the Buddha?

A: Where does your question proceed? Whence does your consciousness arise? When speech is silenced, all movement stilled, every sight and sound vanished–THEN is the Buddha’s work of deliverance truly going forward! Then, where will you seek the Buddha? You cannot place a head upon your head, or lips upon your lips; rather, you should just refrain from every kind of dualistic distinction. Hills are hills. Water is water. Monks are monks. Laymen are laymen. But these mountains, these rivers, the whole world itself, together with sun, moon and stars–not one of them exists outside your minds! The vast chiliocosm exists only within you, so where else can the various categories of phenomena possibly be found? Outside Mind, there is nothing.

~Huang-Po~