鎮州臨濟慧照禪師語錄 1.38

1.38

A question was asked: "What is the place where mind from thought to thought does not differ?"
The Master said: "When you intend to ask, it has already differed; nature and characteristics are divided. Followers of the Way, do not be mistaken! All worldly and world-transcending dharmas have no self-nature, nor do they have a nature of arising; they are merely empty names, and the names are also empty. You merely recognize these idle names as real—a great mistake! Even if they exist, they are all environments of dependent transformation. There is a bodhi-dependency, a nirvāṇa-dependency, a liberation-dependency, a three-bodies-dependency, an environment-and-wisdom-dependency, a bodhisattva-dependency, a buddha-dependency. What thing are you seeking in lands of dependent transformation? Even the three vehicles and the twelvefold canon are all waste paper for wiping filth. The Buddha is an illusory transformation body; the patriarchs are old bhikṣus. Were you yourself born from your mother or not? If you seek the Buddha, you will be seized by the buddha-māra; if you seek the patriarchs, you will be bound by the patriarch-māra; if you have seeking, all is suffering. It is not as good as having nothing to do. There is a sort of bald bhikṣu who says to students: 'The Buddha is ultimate; only after practicing through three great asaṃkhyeya kalpas and bringing the fruit to fullness does he finally realize the Way.' Followers of the Way! If you say the Buddha is ultimate, why after eighty years did he lie on his side between the twin trees in the city of Kuśinagara and die? Where is the Buddha now? Clearly known, he is no different from our birth and death. You say the thirty-two marks and eighty minor signs are the Buddha; then a wheel-turning sage king must be a Tathāgata! Clearly known, it is an illusory transformation. An ancient said: 'The Tathāgata exhibited bodily marks to comply with worldly sentiments; fearing people would give rise to annihilationist views, he provisionally set up empty names.' We provisionally speak of the thirty-two and the eighty; these are empty sounds. Having a body is not the awakened substance; formlessness is the true form."