觀心論 1.6

1.6

Answer: The poor people of the final age who count others' treasures are not the primary subject of these words. If those who sit in meditation and practice contemplation merely steady their minds on the nasal septum, the impure, and ānāpāna, this too is like facing a wall—how can one discuss the path? All those who contemplate the mind, enter the path, and obtain concentration produce inverted understandings, speak with boundless eloquence, and consider themselves treasures of the human world; how can they know that their improper pride blazes fiercely? Now I pose these questions: if they do not know them sentence by sentence, how can they claim to have attained what they have not attained, and claim to have realized what they have not realized? In the Lotus Sūtra, in the chapter 'Encouraging Devotion', the Buddha said: 'Such persons are difficult to transform and save.' Also, in the chapter 'Bodhisattva Never Disparaging': 'After the Tathāgata King of Majestic Sound passed away, people of this kind were very numerous, not just one.' Furthermore, I grieve in thought: 'The disciples of my own lineage have followed me for accumulated years; observing the mind for a rather long time, they still do not know how to investigate and question the mind like this. Consequently, not dyeing themselves in the internal Dharma, they cling to external letters, steal notes and run about, carrying scriptures and treatises, wandering aimlessly. Why do they not discard words and set aside texts, break open a single mote of dust, and read the scripture scrolls of the great trichiliocosm?' Thinking of these deluded disciples who have followed me for successive years, gaining nothing in vain—if suddenly their eyes should close in death, who would show it to them again? Because of these causes and conditions, grief and distress have arrived all the more intensely, and therefore I compose this treatise."