撫州曹山元證禪師語錄 1.70

1.70

Ascending the hall, a monk asked, "What is a person of great icchantika?" The Master said, "Not fearing karma." The monk said, "What is an ignorant person?" The Master said, "Never awakening from beginning to end." The monk said, "Between these two people, who is ahead?" The Master said, "The ignorant one." The monk said, "Why is the icchantika behind?" The Master said, "One who goes onward." The monk said, "If so, then does the ignorant one not go forth from today?" The Master said, "Right." The monk said, "Since he does not go forth from today, from where does ignorance come?" The Master said, "It dares not enter where there is light." The monk said, "Is it not neither dark nor light?" The Master said, "Right." The monk said, "What about right at such a time?" The Master said, "Not receiving touch." The Master further said, "There are many kinds of icchantika. One kind kills father and kills mother, sheds the Buddha's blood, breaks the harmonious saṅgha, and destroys monasteries; these have fixed actual retributions and suffer various kinds of pain. Another kind also performs actions like the former, but this is killing the father of ignorance and the mother of craving and attachment, not believing that there are Buddha, Dharma, or Saṅgha that can be broken, nor monasteries that can be destroyed; reckoning what is attained by the karmic mind, they fall accordingly and also suffer various false retributions as before, differing in ascent and descent. Another kind knows the existence of their own fundamental matter, calling it father and mother; it is not obtained through external things, has neither practice nor realization, is neither cause nor effect, is not received from a teacher, and is not obtained from realized practice. Not giving rise to the view of 'father' is called killing; not giving rise to the view of 'mother' is called harming. That is, among all fundamental matters one dares not fail to preserve it, hence it is called killing and harming. The moment there is the slightest honoring or tasting [of it], one fails to know the existence of one's own matter; therefore it is called a great icchantika. Mobilizing this wondrous power is precisely undertaking the realization of the family matter according to the ancestral vehicle, cutting off the dark path and shattering all circumlocutions, just as the Old Man of Xinfeng subtly revealed."