止觀輔行傳弘決 1.2

1.2

Those who take nothingness as their principle discard the path of the nominal teaching; those who abandon written words deviate from the purport of composing treatises. In ancient times, the Brahma King [Śākyamuni], taking advantage of the proper time, appeared to benefit [beings]; the sages and worthies harmonized with his path, and none contravened his virtuous voice. Yet he still relied on verbal formulations, committing them to the councils of compilation. How much more so as time has prolonged into the semblance and final eras, when students rarely discern the subtle beginnings! Guests who grasp and comprehend are not even one or two in ten. Some sit silently for exhausted years, relishing moderation in dullness and ignorance; others discuss the mind until their heads are white, hesitating between the partial and the full. That people are so prone to bias—how could it be like this? Before mounting to touch the elephant, each expounds on the colour of milk: some claim that "this mind itself is the Buddha" is the gate to awakening and entry; if form is not different from emptiness, who traces the root and branch? If one would merge into the absolute, why apply chapters and verses? Alas! That the great teaching has declined like this is entirely because they have not distinguished that the nature of written words is detached; who can comprehend how profound the efficacy of dhāraṇī is? Formerly, Great Master Zhizhe descended to be born and manifest in the world, extensively propagating the profound virtue to vastly rescue [beings from] the cross-currents. He sought consultation to pile up earth under Dasi, and raised the broken mainstays under Nāgārjuna. Establishing his lineage and composing canonical works, he took the Middle Contemplation as his guiding school; setting up the ultimate and formulating doctrines, he took the Supreme Vehicle as the destination. Thereupon he entrusted it to Guanding. Master Guanding extended and elaborated it, respectfully revering and widely upholding it, leaving extensive written records, so that the portal of the teaching was once again illumined from this point on. He was succeeded by Fahua Wei; Master Wei had cultivated seeds from past lives and did not err in his original purity. Next was Tiangong Wei; Master Wei reverently received it as water is poured from vessel to vessel, and transmitted it to Zuoxi Xuanlang. Master Xuanlang was peerless, with natural genius and independent judgment; following tradition in exposition and explanation, he had no leisure to care for his own writings, and carried on the propagation through Pitan Zhanran. Master Zhanran was born at intervals, possessed of remarkable insight from his youth; Zuoxi deeply appreciated his extraordinary capacity and vowed to transmit the lamp [to him]. He used to say that the two gates of calming and contemplation unify the myriad practices, being an arrangement of the perfect and sudden that is threaded together by one [principle]. Ah! Continuing through four generations for nearly two hundred years, corruptions like "fish" and "Lu" have not been without similarities and differences. Just as he was about to unravel thoughts to guide the profound stream, he extensively refuted heterodoxies and doubts, drawing broadly on the present and the past; plain without being crude, extensive without being verbose, he composed the Notes on Supporting Practice in ten fascicles, fully providing the extensive and concise purports of earlier sages, and according with the superior and inferior capacities of contemporary people. How could it merely interweave what was heard? It was meant to regulate what is cultivated. What is cultivated is practice—the wondrous movement of the three abundances is swiftly attained; what is heard is understanding alone—the profound insight into the one true [reality] is hereby united. When practice has diverging paths, the beginning and end are as separated as heaven and earth; when understanding lacks orientation, its shallowness and depth also follow their kind. Establishing doctrines to support practice in order to encompass it fully, [people] therefore came from distant regions to inquire into doubts and seek instruction. Dispelling ignorance and uncovering the obscured, he was diligent day and night, in the hope of profoundly assisting, respectfully admiring, transmitting, and propagating, so that the imminent practice of the Path would not proceed in isolation. Alas, I, a student of the final era, lightly discourse on the Supreme Vehicle, which is like a torch trying to add radiance to the two luminaries. Reverently prefaced by the chuji'nan Pumenzi of Junshan, in the fourth year of Yongtai, the first year of the reign era, under the eighth generation of the flourishing Tang.