直心是道場無虚假故 · jikishin kore dōjō, koke naki ga yue ni · The straight mind is the place of the Way, because it holds no falsehood
Sold as the short line 直心是道場 and the full line with its reason clause, under the page title The straightforward mind is the place of practice, because it is free of falsehood · Read in Japanese jikishin kore dōjō, koke naki ga yue ni, the reading every dated Japanese witness gives · Oldest witness Kumārajīva's Chinese Vimalakīrti Sutra of 406, read at the column; quoted by a lay prince of the Southern Qi before 494 and by Prince Shōtoku in the seventh century · Sense the place of practice is not a hall but an honest mind; the Zen tradition took the line from the Platform Sutra, which set it beside the straight mind is the Pure Land.
The words
Nine characters, a sentence and its reason. 直心 is the straight mind: 直 is straight, upright, honest, and 心 the mind or heart. The reading is jikishin, the go-on reading Buddhist words keep, and the modern dictionaries head it that way: デジタル大辞泉 仏語。正しくまっすぐな心, a Buddhist word: a right and straight mind; 精選版日本国語大辞典 adds ひたむきに仏道をめざす心, a mind set single-mindedly on the Buddha's way, and cites this sutra. The word is Kumārajīva's choice. The Sanskrit behind it is āśaya, a disposition or intent, which 玄奘 rendered 淳直意樂, a pure and straight intention, and which the translators working from the Sanskrit and Tibetan give as motivation or good intentions; Kumārajīva kept the one word 直, and everything the Zen tradition later built on the line is built on that word. 是 is the copula, is. 道場 is dōjō: in the sutra it is the bodhimaṇḍa, the seat under the tree where the Buddha woke (デジタル大辞泉's sense 2, 釈迦が悟りを開いた菩提樹下の場所), and only later the training hall of sense 1, 武芸の修練を行う場所. The line's force for anyone who trains is that crossing, and the sutra makes it first: a seeker asks for a place and is given a mind. 無虚假故 is the reason: 虚假, koke, is falsehood, pretense, the outside not matching the inside (デジタル大辞泉 仏語 真実でないこと。外面と内心とが一致しないこと); 無 negates it and 故 means because. Read in Japanese the clause is 虚假無きが故に, because it is without falsehood. The modern Japanese spelling 虚仮 and the sutra's 虚假 are one word, and the scroll keeps the sutra's form, which every witness from the fifth century to 1935 writes. Kyoko, which the page once printed, is not a reading of these characters. The line is the first of thirty-two items in the sutra's list, each of the shape X is the place of the Way, because Y; the short form on the scroll is the first item without its reason, the full form the item entire.
A history, from the earliest witness
406. Kumārajīva's Chinese translation of the Vimalakīrti Sutra, 維摩詰所説経, book 1, chapter 4, 菩薩品. The youth 光嚴 meets the layman Vimalakīrti at the gate of Vaiśālī and asks where he has come from. 居士從何所來？ 吾從道場來。 道場者何所是？ 答曰：『直心是道場，無虛假故；發行是道場，能辦事故；深心是道場，增益功德故；菩提心是道場，無錯謬故；…』, "Householder, where have you come from?" "I have come from the place of the Way." "Where is the place of the Way?" He answered: "The straight mind is the place of the Way, because it holds no falsehood; the resolve to practice is the place of the Way, because it gets things done; the deep mind is the place of the Way, because it increases merit; the mind of awakening is the place of the Way, because it makes no error; …" Thirty-two items follow, ending with the whole of a bodhisattva's conduct: 舉足下足，當知皆從道場來, lifting a foot or setting it down, know that all of it comes from the place of the Way. The oldest Chinese translation, 支謙's of 223, has no straight-mind line at all; its list opens differently. So the wording we brush is Kumārajīva's, and the sentence is Vimalakīrti's answer, not the Buddha's. [cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T0475&juan=1, columns T14n0475_p0542c13 to p0543a07; text. 支謙: work=T0474&juan=1, p0524a25; text]
Fifth century. 僧肇's commentary, 注維摩詰経, book 4. Kumārajīva's own disciple explains the word: 直心者，謂內心真直、外無虛假，斯乃基萬行之本、坦進道之場也, the straight mind means an inner mind that is true and straight, with no falsehood outside; this is the base on which every practice is founded, the level ground on which one advances in the Way. And he asks the question every later reader of the line borrows: 曷為近捨閑境而遠求空地乎？, why abandon the quiet ground close at hand and seek an empty place far off? His colleague 道生 adds 以無虛假為懷者必得佛也, one who holds to no-falsehood will surely become a Buddha. [work=T1775&juan=4, T38n1775_p0363c23 to p0364a01; text]
Before 494. 蕭子良, prince of the Southern Qi, 浄住子浄行法門, quoted in 道宣's 廣弘明集 of 664. The oldest quotation of the line outside the sutra's own commentaries is a layman's: the prince's manual of pure conduct opens its first chapter by arguing that Buddhism has both the name and the virtue, and proves it with our sentence, 譬若濟海託舟踐途寄足。故經云。直心是道場。無虛假故。發行是道場。能辨事故。如是四弘六度俱稱道場, as one crossing the sea relies on a boat and one walking a road relies on his feet; so the sutra says: the straight mind is the place of the Way, because it holds no falsehood; the resolve to practice is the place of the Way, because it gets things done; and thus the four vows and six perfections are all called the place of the Way. The collection heads the text 淨住子淨行法南齊文宣公, the prince's posthumous title. [work=T2103&juan=27, T52n2103_p0306b15 and b23 to b26; text. A Ming print of the same text in the 漢魏六朝百三名家集 at the National Diet Library, pid 2551375, koma 33, OCR; text at lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/page/2551375_33]
Sui. 智顗's 維摩経略疏 and 吉蔵's 維摩経義疏. The two great commentators of the sixth century both stop at the line. 智顗 ties it to the eightfold path, 故文云「直心是道場，無虛假故。」若觀無作修八正道，即離邪小紆迴曲見，名真直心, so the text says "the straight mind is the place of the Way, because it holds no falsehood"; when one contemplates the uncreated and cultivates the eightfold right path, one leaves the crooked and narrow views of the wrong and small, and this is called the true straight mind, and he is the first to read it together with the sutra's earlier sentence 直心是菩薩淨土, the straight mind is the bodhisattva's Pure Land, from the chapter on the Buddha-land. 吉蔵 glosses the two characters of 道場 separately: 所言道者，謂無上正遍知，佛果道也。所言場者，凡有二義, 道 means unsurpassed right and universal knowing, the Way of the Buddha-fruit; 場 has two senses, the fruit's assembled virtues as the ground, or the cause as the ground of the fruit. [智顗: work=T1778&juan=2, T38n1778_p0591b25 to b27 and p0591c10 to c12. 吉蔵: work=T1781&juan=4, T38n1781_p0951a06 to a10; text]
Seventh century. Prince Shōtoku's 維摩経義疏, read in printings of 1892 and 1897. The oldest Japanese witness is the commentary the tradition gives to 聖徳太子. The 1897 print carries the line with reading marks, 答曰直心是道塲無虛假故, and the 1892 print the gloss: 直心能判善惡遠感佛果故云直心是道塲無虛假故者釋信質直無虛假也, the straight mind can tell good from evil and draws the Buddha-fruit from afar, so it says "the straight mind is the place of the Way"; "because it holds no falsehood" explains that faith is plain and straight, without falsehood. [5][5]
Tang. The Śūraṅgama Sutra, 首楞嚴經, book 6. A second sutra gives the four-character form the Japanese later used as a title. In the Buddha's warning against false claims of attainment: 我教比丘直心道場，於四威儀一切行中尚無虛假，云何自稱得上人法？… 因地不直，果招紆曲, I teach the monks that the straight mind is the place of the Way; in the four postures and every act there is to be no falsehood at all, so how could one claim for oneself the attainments of a superior man? … If the ground of the cause is not straight, the fruit will be crooked. A few columns on, 若諸比丘心如直絃, if the monks' minds are like a straight bowstring. The two sentences travel together from here. [work=T0945&juan=6, T19n0945_p0132c18 to c22; text; the byline names 般剌蜜帝 as translator under the Tang]
Tang. The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, 六祖壇経, in the Dunhuang manuscript and in the recension of 1291. This is the door through which the line entered Zen. 慧能 defines the samādhi of one practice by it: 一行三昧者，於一切時中，行、住、坐、臥，常行直心是。《淨名經》云：『直心是道場，直心是淨土。』莫心行諂曲，口說法直，口說一行三昧，不行直心，非佛弟子。但行直心，於一切法上，無有執著，名一行三昧, the samādhi of one practice is this: at all times, walking, standing, sitting, lying down, always to act with a straight mind. The Vimalakīrti Sutra says: "the straight mind is the place of the Way; the straight mind is the Pure Land." Do not let the mind act crookedly while the mouth speaks of straightness; to speak of the samādhi of one practice and not act with a straight mind is not to be a disciple of the Buddha. Only act with a straight mind, and cling to nothing in any dharma: that is called the samādhi of one practice. The later recension reads the same with small changes, 於一切處行住坐臥，常行一直心是也 and 口但說直. The pairing 直心是道場，直心是淨土 is the Platform Sutra's, made of two sentences from two chapters of the Vimalakīrti, and it is in this paired form that most Zen writers after it quote the line. [Dunhuang: work=T2007&juan=1, T48n2007_p0338b15 to b19. 宗寶 recension: work=T2008&juan=1, T48n2008_p0352c25 to c29; text]
Tang. The Recorded Sayings of Layman Pang, 龐居士語錄, book 2. A lay poet's verse turns the line on the reader: 如來愍諸子，平等無高下，諸子自愚癡，所以難教化。直心是道場，子心轉姦詐, the Tathāgata pities his children, equal, without high or low; the children in their own folly are hard to teach. The straight mind is the place of the Way, but the child's mind turns to cunning and deceit. [work=X1336&juan=2, X69n1336_p0135c14 to c16; text]
Song. 子璿's commentary on the Śūraṅgama, 首楞嚴義疏注經, and a Japanese printing the catalogue dates 1339. Commenting on the Buddha's demand that Ānanda answer with a straight mind, 子璿 cites Vimalakīrti: 研，究窮也。《淨名》云「直心是道場，無虛假故。」今推本意，豈得異想發言。欲正修行，當須確實，故今勸也, "to investigate" is to search to the end. The Vimalakīrti says "the straight mind is the place of the Way, because it holds no falsehood." Now, tracing the original intent, how could one speak from a divergent thought? One who would practice rightly must be solid and true; that is why he exhorts him here. The National Diet Library holds a Japanese print of this commentary whose catalogue record names 高師直 as printer and 1339 as the year; if the record is right, this is the line's oldest dated printing in Japan, at the hand of the Ashikaga shogunate's steward. The leaf was read only in the OCR layer and the colophon not at all, so the date is reported as the catalogue's. [work=T1799&juan=1, T39n1799_p0832a08 to a10; text. pid 2543435, koma 43, OCR, which reads 津名云直心是道場無虚假故今推二本意豈得二異想発言一; text at lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/page/2543435_43]
Twelfth century. 大慧宗杲's sermon to the layman 徳之, in the 大慧普覺禪師普說, book 4, read in an Edo printing. The great Song master preaches the line to a layman: 先聖有言：「佛說一切法，度我一切心。我無一切心，何用一切法？」又《淨名》云：「直心是道場，無虗假故。」若能於一切法中不生情解，則法法自如, a sage of old said: "the Buddha taught all the dharmas to deliver all my minds; when I have no mind at all, what use are all the dharmas?" And the Vimalakīrti says: "the straight mind is the place of the Way, because it holds no falsehood." If in all the dharmas you raise no emotional understanding, then every dharma is just as it is. The Edo print reads the same, with Japanese reading marks. [work=M1540&juan=4, M59n1540_p0962b01 to b04; text. pid 2559660, koma 68, by eye; text at lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/page/2559660_68]
Thirteenth century. 光明蔵三昧, credited to 懐奘, Dōgen's successor, read in the 1879 print from Eiheiji's own blocks. The Sōtō text closes its instruction on sitting with the Śūraṅgama's four characters: 如是ニ只管打坐シテ。光陰莫虛度。是ヲ直心道塲。不思議解脫ノ。光明藏三昧ト云ナリ。此篇ハ門下入室ノ人ニアラズバ。見セシムルコトナカレ, thus, just sit; do not pass the light and shade in vain. This is called the straight mind as place of the Way, the samādhi of the treasury of light, the inconceivable liberation. Do not let this piece be seen by anyone who has not entered the room as a disciple. [pid 822966, koma 27, page 20 of the print; by eye; text at lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/page/822966_27. The same in the 承陽大師聖教全集 of 1909, pid 823141, koma 291, OCR]
Fourteenth century. 抜隊得勝's 塩山和泥合水集, a sermon in Japanese, read in the 1895 print. The first Japanese witness in Japanese rather than Chinese is a Rinzai master's kana sermon on the Pure Land as the mind. 抜隊 (1327 to 1387, who founded 向嶽寺 at 塩山 in 1380; the collection is dated to about 1387 by 精選版日本国語大辞典 under 塩山仮名法語) writes: 我人なき時は、心性如々にして、定亂の相なし、これを名けて一心不亂とす、これはこれ直心也。經に曰く、直心是道塲、虛假なきが故に、四大分散の後をば暫くおく。只今この色身の内に見聞覺知する主は、さて是れ何物ぞ, when there is no self and other, the nature of the mind is just as it is, without the marks of calm and disturbance; this is called the one mind undisturbed, and this is the straight mind. The sutra says: the straight mind is the place of the Way, because it is without falsehood. Set aside for now what happens after the four elements scatter. The master who sees, hears, perceives and knows inside this body of flesh right now: what, then, is it? [pid 823256, koma 92, pages 162 to 163 of the print; by eye, on a crop; the OCR layer reads 虛假なきか故に and 後をは; text at lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/page/823256_92. Life dates: kotobank.jp/word/抜隊得勝-115096; text]
A kana sermon attributed to Dōgen, the 永平假名法語, read in the 1896 print. The collection gives Dōgen's name to a sermon that unfolds the line into four: 故に維摩居士の云はく、直心是道塲なり。後世なきが故に直心是法界、妄想なきが故に直心是佛性、思量分別なきが故に直心是禪定、見聞に不拘故に、足をあぐるも足をさげるも、皆是道塲なり, so the layman Vimalakīrti says: the straight mind is the place of the Way. Because there is no afterlife, the straight mind is the dharma-realm; because there is no delusion, the straight mind is Buddha-nature; because there is no thinking and discriminating, the straight mind is meditation; because it is not bound by seeing and hearing, lifting the foot and lowering the foot are all the place of the Way. The attribution is the collection's, and this history does not date the text. [pid 823257, koma 26, pages 4 to 5 of the print; by eye; text at lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/page/823257_26]
Sixteenth century. 西山休静's 禪家龜鑑, the Korean Zen primer, read at CBETA and in Edo printings. The Korean master pairs the Śūraṅgama's bowstring with our line: 道人宜應端心，以質直為本，一瓢一衲，旅泊無累。佛云：心如直絃。又云：直心是道場。若不耽著此身，則必旅泊無累, a person of the Way should set the mind straight and take plainness and honesty as the root; one gourd, one robe, lodging like a traveler, without burden. The Buddha said: the mind like a straight bowstring. And again: the straight mind is the place of the Way. If you do not cling to this body, you will surely lodge like a traveler, without burden. The book was printed in Japan more than once; the National Diet Library has an undated Edo print and one of 1635. [work=X1255&juan=1, X63n1255_p0743a24 to b02; text. pid 2537633, koma 24, OCR; the 1635 print, pid 2537787, not opened at a koma]
1665. 山鹿素行's 山鹿語類, book 33, read in the 1902 typeset of the 日本倫理彙編. A Confucian names the line as the whole of the Zen error. Under the heading 論異端之教違聖學, that the teachings of the heterodox depart from the learning of the sages: 師曰。釋氏以性心。爲明白虛靈。而能通萬法。故曰直心是道塲。佛即是心。心即是佛。更無別物。又無別心。於此求直心之作用。以直指人心見性成佛爲言。千差萬別, the master said: the Buddhists take the nature and the mind to be luminous, empty and spiritual, able to penetrate all things; so they say "the straight mind is the place of the Way," "Buddha is mind, mind is Buddha," "there is no other thing, and no other mind." From this they seek the working of the straight mind and speak of pointing straight at the human mind, seeing the nature and becoming Buddha; a thousand differences, ten thousand distinctions. The date is the 語類's own; the typeset was read. [pid 1913275, koma 95, page 179 of the volume, headed 古學派上 with the running foot 山鹿素行 山鹿語類 卷三十三; by eye; the OCR reads 千差万別; text at lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/page/1913275_95]
1725. 天桂伝尊's 註法宝壇経海水一滴, book 3. The Sōtō commentator prints the Platform Sutra's pair with his own gloss: 如淨名經云。直心是道場。直心是淨土。内影心跡外認境界所作念悉爲染汚, as the Vimalakīrti Sutra says: the straight mind is the place of the Way, the straight mind is the Pure Land. When the mind's traces shadow within and objects are recognized without, every thought that is made becomes defilement; and further down the leaf, 直心道場故經云一切衆生皆是道場, because the straight mind is the place of the Way, the sutra says all living beings are the place of the Way. [pid 2595907, koma 49, leaves 46 to 47 of the volume; by eye; the OCR reads 如二淨名經一云二直心是道場直心一是淨土 with the reading marks as characters; text at lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/page/2595907_49]
1879 to 1892. Meiji printings of the Chinese texts and the first Japanese readings. The 仏祖三経指南 of the Ming monk 道霈, printed with headnotes in 1879 and 1887, carries the line in its commentary on the 遺教経. The 1892 鈔訳仏経要義全書 gives the earliest kundoku found in print: 答て曰く直心是れ道塲。虛假無きが故に。發行是れ道塲。能く事を辨ずるが故に. [pid 818148, koma 102 and pid 818151, koma 24; pid 817849, koma 54; OCR; text at lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/page/817849_54]
1900. 大内青巒's 六祖法宝壇経講義. The lay Buddhist lecturer explains the Platform Sutra's passage for a Meiji public, and his gloss of the straight mind is the plainest in the record: 直心とは正直心なり、正直の心とは渴して飮を求め、飢て食を求むるが如し、腹のへりて食い度いと思ふときには、食の善惡良否を問はず、これ餘念を雜へざるなり、若し餘念の少しにても雜はることあらば直心にあらず, the straight mind is the honest mind; the honest mind is like seeking drink when thirsty and food when hungry: when the belly is empty and you want to eat, you do not ask whether the food is good or bad; that is to mix in no other thought, and if even a little other thought is mixed in, it is not the straight mind. [pid 823552, koma 50, pages 98 to 99; by eye; the OCR reads 雜へさる; text at lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/page/823552_50]
1909. 釈宗演's 無門関講義, lectures on the Gateless Gate. The abbot of Engakuji, the first Zen master to teach in America, reaches the line in the case of 大通智勝佛 who sat ten kalpas in the place of the Way without attaining, and says what he does with it: 併し此道場と云ふのも、種々に解釋が出來る、『維摩經』に直心是道場と云てある、大變良い言葉で私は時々此句を額や掛物に書いて遣つたが直心と云ふは、直き心直しき心で此の直しき心、是れ道場なりと云ふことが『維摩經』の中にある, but this "place of the Way" can be explained in several ways. The Vimalakīrti Sutra says "the straight mind is the place of the Way," a very fine phrase, and I sometimes write this line on plaques and hanging scrolls and give them away; "straight mind" means a straight heart, an honest heart, and that this honest heart is the place of the Way is what the Vimalakīrti Sutra says. He goes on: the hall with its high seat and its image is not the dōjō; 此の直心が取りも直さず人々固有の大道場である, this straight mind is, precisely, the great place of the Way that each person owns. This is the earliest witness found for the line brushed as a hanging scroll. In his 1918 lectures on the 禅海一瀾 he set the sutra's 直 beside Mencius's, 直を以て養ふ, nourish it with straightness, and beside his teacher's teacher: 此事も『維摩經』などを見ると、『直心是れ道場』などゝ言ふてある。白隱禪師の師匠である正受老人の言葉に、『正念工夫、不斷相續』と言ふてゐる, this too, if you look in the Vimalakīrti Sutra, is said as "the straight mind is the place of the Way"; and 正受老人, the teacher of Hakuin, says "right mindfulness in practice, unbroken and continuous." [pid 899779, koma 50, pages 70 to 71; by eye; the OCR reads 遣つだが; text at lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/page/899779_50. 1918: pid 943659, koma 196, OCR; the 1930 collected edition, pid 1181376, koma 53, pages 86 to 87, by eye]
1913. 新井石禅's 精神修養日日の心得, a maxim for each day of the month. The Sōtō prelate's book of daily precepts gives the line to the twenty-second day, with the kana on the page: 廿二日 何事も眞心より爲せ 直心是れ道場（維摩經）, the twenty-second: do everything from the true heart. The straight mind is the place of the Way (Vimalakīrti Sutra), read jikishin kore dōjō, and pairs it with the Meiji Emperor's poem on sincerity moving even the gods. The line has left the commentaries and become a maxim. [pid 909688, koma 6, page 9; by eye, on a crop; the OCR reads 廿 and 道塲; text at lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/page/909688_6]
1921. 間宮英宗's 禅とは是れぢや, popular Zen talks, reprinted 1934 and 1938. A whole chapter is titled 直心是道場. It retells the meeting at the gate in Japanese, 『拙者は、何處其處といふ道場から歸つて來たのではござらぬ。直心是道場なり。』, "I have not come back from any dōjō in such-and-such a place. The straight mind is the place of the Way," and draws the moral the kendo halls draw: 其心持さへあつたならば、至る所修養の道場ならざるなく、一つとして直心是道場ならざるはなしである, if only one has that state of mind, there is nowhere that is not a place of training, and nothing that is not "the straight mind is the place of the Way"; and, with the Śūraṅgama's four characters, 行住座臥一に直心道場ならざるなし, walking, standing, sitting, lying down, there is nothing that is not the straight mind as place of the Way. [pid 963270, komas 105 to 128, the quotations at komas 107, 127 and 120; OCR; text at lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/page/963270_107. Reprints pid 1133561 and 1105946]
1928. 河口慧海's 国訳維摩経 漢蔵対照, the Vimalakīrti with the Tibetan set against the Chinese. The monk who walked into Tibet compares the versions and holds up our line as the model of what Kumārajīva's Chinese does that the Sanskrit cannot: 漢譯は簡にして明と云ふべき點もあり、齒切れの善い言葉で單刀直入的に言ひ表はした所に言ひ知れぬ妙味快感を生ずる特長をもつてゐる。例せば「直心是れ道場虛假なきが故に」と云ふの類である, the Chinese translation has points where it may be called terse and clear, and its special quality is that in expressing things crisply and with a single direct stroke it produces an inexpressible pleasure; for instance, "the straight mind is the place of the Way, because it is without falsehood." [pid 1188552, koma 33, page 53, the section 八 文句の比較; by eye; text at lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/page/1188552_33]
Today. The line is in 148 digitized Japanese books to 1946 in its Chinese form and in 41 in the Japanese reading, and in 100 texts of the Chinese Buddhist canon. The 1911 and 1935 Japanese translations of the sutra print the reading with the kana, 直心は是れ道場なり、虚假無きが故に, and the dictionaries head 直心 as jikishin with this sutra as the source. [6][7]
The sense across time
One sense from the first, with a change of setting. In the sutra the place of the Way is the seat of awakening, and Vimalakīrti's answer is that the seat is not a place at all but a quality of mind, of which straightness, no gap between inside and outside, is the first. 僧肇 in the fifth century already reads it as a rebuke to the seeker who leaves the quiet ground at hand to look for holy ground far off, and every later reader keeps that. What changes is what the reader sets against it: the Chinese prince sets it against name without virtue; the Platform Sutra against the mouth that speaks of straightness while the mind is crooked, and makes it the definition of samādhi in daily motion, walking, standing, sitting, lying down; 抜隊 and the kana sermon turn it inward, the straight mind as the one mind undisturbed; the Confucian reads it as the whole of a rival doctrine; the Meiji lecturers make it a rule of honest appetite and a maxim for a day; and 間宮 in 1921 draws the sentence the training halls use, that wherever this mind is, there is the dōjō. The word 道場 slid from the Buddha's seat to the practice hall to the martial hall, and the line was ready for each because it had denied the building from the start.
What is not a source
The 禅林句集, the phrase book from which Japanese Zen calligraphy takes most of its lines, does not carry this one; its dōjō line is the five-character 歩歩是道場, every step is the place of the Way, and a reader who knows the line from the tea room or the kendo wall should not look for it there. The Śūraṅgama's 直心道場 and 心如直絃 are a parallel, not the source of the nine characters. The pairing 直心是道場，直心是淨土 is the Platform Sutra's construction from two chapters of the Vimalakīrti and is not a sentence of the Vimalakīrti itself. The kendo handout and the Engakuji page the earlier account cited are modern restatements, correct in sense, and add no witness. The 1339 date of the Japanese print of 子璿's commentary is the library's catalogue entry, not a colophon read.
The line in English
No Meiji bilingual dictionary carries the line, and Blyth's shelf of Zen and haiku volumes has no rendering of it, so the English begins with the first English Platform Sutra and runs through the Vimalakīrti translators. None of the eight copies another's wording.
1930. Wong Mou-lam, Sutra Spoken by the Sixth Patriarch, Shanghai; as edited by Dwight Goddard in A Buddhist Bible, second edition, E. P. Dutton, New York, 1938, in the chapter on Samadhi and Prajna. The Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra says: "Straight-forwardnesses the holy place, the Pure Land." Do not let your mind be "crooked" and try to be straightforward with your lips only. The first English rendering of the line, by way of the Platform Sutra's pair; holy place for 道場 and Pure Land for 淨土. The text file's forwardnesses sits at a line break and is read as forwardness is; the printed page was not opened, and Goddard's edition abridges and revises Wong's 1930 text. [archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.279263; the text is the item's _djvu.txt file under archive.org/download/in.ernet.dli.2015.279263/, not the details page; the printed page not opened]
1972. Charles Luk (Lu K'uan Yü), The Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra, Shambala, Berkeley, pages 38 to 39, chapter "The Bodhisattvas". He replied: 'The straightforward mind is the bodhimandala, for it is free from falsehood. The initiated mind is the bodhimandala, for it can keep discipline. The profound mind is the bodhimandala, for it accumulates merits. The enlightened mind is the bodhimandala for it is infallible.' Luk keeps the Sanskrit for 道場 and adds the gloss a holy site; straightforward mind is the rendering the house page inherited. [archive.org/details/rzrp_the-vimalakirti-nirdesa-sutra-wei-mo-chieh-so-shuo-ching-by-unknown-samuel-; the text is the item's _djvu.txt file under archive.org/download/
1976. Étienne Lamotte, The Teaching of Vimalakīrti, translated from the French by Sara Boin, Pali Text Society, London, chapter III, section 55, page 95. From the Tibetan: the seat of enlightenment (bodhimaṇḍa) is the seat of good intentions (kalyāṇāśaya), for they …, the sentence broken by the footnotes in the text file. Lamotte's note 106 is the one that matters for the Chinese: the Chinese versions by K and H invert the order of the words adopted by the Tibetan translation: the subject becomes the predicate and vice versa: "Good intentions are the seat of enlightenment for they are unfeigned." So what Kumārajīva wrote as the straight mind is the place of the Way the Tibetan has as the place of the Way is the seat of good intention, and the word behind 直心 is āśaya, intention, not straightness. [archive.org/details/etienne-lamotte-vimala-kirti-nirdesa-teaching-of-vimalakirti; the text is the item's _djvu.txt file under archive.org/download/etienne-lamotte-vimala-kirti-nirdesa-teaching-of-vimalakirti/, not the details page]
1977. Buddhist Text Translation Society, The Sixth Patriarch's Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra, with the commentary of Tripitaka Master Hua, second edition, San Francisco, pages 204 to 205. As the Vimalakirti Sutra says, 'The straight mind is the Bodhimandala; the straight mind is the Pure Land.' The plainest English for 直心, the straight mind, which this history adopts. [archive.org/details/the-sixth-patriarchs-dharma-jewel-platform-sutra; the text is the item's _djvu.txt file under archive.org/download/the-sixth-patriarchs-dharma-jewel-platform-sutra/, not the details page; ISBN 0-88139-316-9]
1998. Thomas Cleary, The Sutra of Hui-neng, Grand Master of Zen, Shambhala, Boston, page 31. The Pure Name Sutra says, "The direct mind is the site of enlightenment; the direct mind is the Pure Land." Cleary translates the sutra's Chinese title, 淨名, Pure Name, and gives 直 as direct. [archive.org/details/the-sutra-of-hui-neng-grand-master-of-zen-with_commentry_on_the_diamond_sutra; the text is the item's _djvu.txt file under archive.org/download/
2004. John R. McRae, The Vimalakīrti Sutra, BDK English Tripiṭaka, Numata Center, Berkeley, chapter IV, section 7. "Sincerity is the place of enlightenment, because of the absence of falsity. The generation of practice is the place of enlightenment, because it is able to discriminate things." McRae reads 直心 as sincerity, which is what 僧肇's gloss says the word means, and 道場 as the place of enlightenment. [archive.org/stream/AmitabhaSutra/Vimalakirti%20Sutra_djvu.txt; text; ISBN 1-886439-31-1]
2022. Luis Gómez and Paul Harrison with the Mangalam Translation Group, Vimalakīrtinirdeśa: The Teaching of Vimalakīrti, Mangalam Press, Berkeley, from the Sanskrit manuscript. "The seat of awakening, good sir, is the seat of motivation, because it is entirely genuine. It is the seat of effort, because it carries its undertakings to completion." The only rendering from the Sanskrit itself; motivation for āśaya, and entirely genuine for the reason clause. Set beside Kumārajīva's, it shows how much of the line's later life is the Chinese translator's choice of the one word 直. [archive.org/details/gomez-harrison-vimalakirtinirdesa-the-teaching-of-vimalakirti-2022; the text is the item's _djvu.txt file under archive.org/download/gomez-harrison-vimalakirtinirdesa-the-teaching-of-vimalakirti-2022/, not the details page]
Not opened. Burton Watson's The Vimalakirti Sutra (Columbia, 1997), Robert Thurman's The Holy Teaching of Vimalakīrti (Pennsylvania State, 1976) and Philip Yampolsky's The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch (Columbia, 1967) are held at archive.org for lending only and their text files refuse; they are named so a reader knows they exist, not as witnesses.
Today. The house title, The straightforward mind is the place of practice, because it is free of falsehood, is Luk's noun with a modern gloss for 道場. A rendering of this line must keep three things: 直 as straight, since that one word is what Kumārajīva chose and what every Chinese, Korean and Japanese reader built on; 道場 as a place and not a state, since the sutra's point is that the place turns out to be a mind; and the because, since the reason clause is the sutra's own gloss on the first four characters and the short scroll without it is the first item of a list of thirty-two. The romaji is the Japanese reading, jikishin kore dōjō, koke naki ga yue ni; the page's former kyoko was a slip for koke.
A reading
The line is exact on the scroll and ancient in every direction I looked. It is Vimalakīrti's, in Kumārajīva's words, with the reason the sutra itself gives; a lay prince quoted it before the fifth century ended, a Japanese prince commented on it in the seventh, and it reached the Zen halls not through the phrase books but through the Platform Sutra, which made it the definition of practice in daily motion and paired it with the straight mind is the Pure Land. In Japan it was a kana sermon by the fourteenth century, a Confucian's one-line summary of Zen by the seventeenth, and a hanging scroll in a Meiji master's own hand by 1909, which is the fact a buyer of this scroll should have. The word that carries all of it is 直, straight, and that word is the translator's: the Sanskrit says intention, and the English translators from the Sanskrit and Tibetan say so. I read that not as a defect in the Chinese but as the reason the line lived: a straight mind can be brushed, and an intention cannot. What the page should say, and now does, is Sengzhao's question, why leave the quiet ground close at hand to seek an empty place far off; what it could add is Sōen's sentence that he wrote this on scrolls and gave them away, because that is the tradition a new scroll of it joins. Signed, 典, 2026-09-06.
How this was read
By eye, at the National Diet Library page images at width 3600 and on crops: Shōtoku's commentary in the 1892 and 1897 prints and the 1911 and 1935 readings (s8); this session, the Edo print of 大慧, the 1725 天桂, the 1879 光明蔵三昧, the 1895 抜隊 and 1896 kana-sermon prints, the 1902 typeset of 山鹿語類, 大内 1900, 宗演 1909 and 1930, 新井 1913, 河口 1928. By text at the address: Kumārajīva, 支謙, 玄奘, 僧肇, 智顗, 吉蔵, the 淨住子 in the 廣弘明集, the Śūraṅgama, both recensions of the Platform Sutra, Layman Pang, 子璿, 大慧 and the 禪家龜鑑 at CBETA's stable API; the seven English renderings at archive.org text files; the kotobank entries. By OCR at the local harvest: the 1339 print, the Edo prints of the 禪家龜鑑 and the 淨住子, the 仏祖三経指南, the 1892 kundoku, 間宮 1921, the 1929 国訳禅学大成, the 1918 禅海一瀾講話. Not opened: the Sanskrit and Tibetan; Watson, Thurman and Yampolsky; the printed pages of the seven English books; the 1339 colophon; 智顗's 文疏; 間宮's chapter by eye. A leaf cited as pid P, koma N resolves as text at lab.ndl.go.jp/dl/api/page/P_N and as an image at dl.ndl.go.jp/api/iiif/P/R<N, seven digits>/full/3600,/0/default.jpg; a canon column cited as T14n0475_p0542c15 resolves at cbdata.dila.edu.tw/stable/juans?work=T0475&juan=1. The full apparatus, with every address, is in the account.
References
- 維摩詰所說經 巻上 菩薩品第四 (鳩摩羅什) (406) — T14n0475_p0542c15–16
- 佛說維摩詰經 (支謙) (223) — T14n0474_p0524a25–27
- 說無垢稱經 巻二 (玄奘) (650) — T14n0476_p0565b12–13
- 注維摩詰經 巻四 (僧肇) (5th c.) — T38n1775_p0363c23
- 維摩經義疏 卷之中 (聖徳太子), 1897 print (7th c. text) — pid 994570 koma 29 · pid 818326 koma 77, by eye ↩
- 田岡嶺雲『和訳維摩経』 (1911) — pid 818345 koma 36, by eye ↩
- 小林一郎『維摩経講義』 (1935) — pid 1226141 koma 230, by eye ↩
- 禪林句集 (1889, 1894) () — pid 899715 koma 43, by eye
- The scroll (2026-05) and the page () — cultural_works 1328; the exemplar record § 1