鎮州臨濟慧照禪師語錄 1.36

1.36

The Master instructed the assembly, saying: "Nowadays, students of the Way must first have confidence in themselves; do not seek outside. You merely fall into extraneous dusty environments, not discerning between the heterodox and the correct at all. Even having patriarchs and having buddhas are all matters within the traces of the teachings. If someone brings up a phrase, emerging either from the hidden or the apparent, you immediately give rise to doubt, looking up to heaven and down to earth, asking around at every house—you are greatly bewildered! Great fellows, do not simply discuss host and thief, discuss right and wrong, discuss form and wealth, and pass the day making idle talk. Here with this mountain monk, without distinction between monastic and lay, whenever anyone comes, I know them completely. Wherever they may emerge from, if they have only names, words, and phrases, all are dreams and illusions. Instead, seeing the person who rides the environment is the profound purport of all buddhas. The buddha-environment cannot say of itself, 'I am the buddha-environment'; it is still this person of the Way who relies on nothing that rides the environment and comes forth. If someone comes forth and asks me seeking the Buddha, I respond by emerging from a pure environment; if someone asks me about a bodhisattva, I respond by emerging from a compassionate environment; if someone asks me about bodhi, I respond by emerging from an exquisitely pure environment; if someone asks me about nirvāṇa, I respond by emerging from a tranquil environment. Environments have myriad differences, but the person is not different; therefore, responding to things, shapes appear, like the moon in water. Followers of the Way! If you wish to accord with the Dharma, you must be a great fellow before you can succeed. If you are weak and subservient, you will not succeed. A cracked vessel is not fit to hold clarified butter. Like a great vessel, you must firmly refuse to be deluded by others; wherever you are, be the master; where you stand, all is true; whatever comes, do not accept it. If you have a single thought of doubt, māras will enter your mind; just as when a bodhisattva doubts, the māra of birth and death finds an advantage. Merely be able to quiet your thoughts and seek nothing externally; when things come, then illuminate them. You need only have confidence in that which is functioning right now—there is not a single thing! A single thought of your mind gives rise to the three realms; according with conditions and driven by environments, it divides into the six dusts. What are you lacking right now in your functioning? In a single kṣaṇa you enter the pure, enter the defiled, enter Maitreya's tower, enter the land of the three eyes; roaming everywhere, you see only empty names."