撫州曹山本寂禪師語錄 2.24

2.24

However, words along the way are all sickness. A person must first be able to distinguish phrases, go straight ahead, [knowing that] having words is coming thus, and lacking words is going thus. An adept is not without words, yet does not get entangled in having words or lacking words. This is called 'words of integration'; words of integration have no fixed mark at all. (Those coming with mutual integration do not fall into having words or lacking words, like Yaoshan's words about carrying a knife; these are words of integration. At the moment, observe the momentum of the words coming: either go straight ahead facing them directly, or be empty within difference. If this is not wondrously understood, one is a thousand or ten thousand miles off. Examples cited of words coming with mutual integration are like the words on Mañjuśrī drinking tea, and 'Where has this person gone right now?' Yunyan said: 'Doing what? Doing what?' and also said: 'Right now, how is it?' There are very many such examples. There is also integration within meritorious achievement, resembling the matter of transcendence; distinguish it as the occasion requires. If one falls into a spot of pure wondrousness, one must know that phenomena are present: if one needs to go, then go; if one needs to stop, then stop; be thoroughly flexible, and never be reckless. In a dialogue, the momentum of the two parties responding to each other does not go beyond the five ranks. Yet words have coarseness and fineness, and answers have shallowness and depth. Therefore, the late master reluctantly used words amid what is non-verbal, purely setting forth these essentials in response to conditions. For example, a person of great ignorance is the complete substance, not like an icchantika. An icchantika knows existence yet covers it up; although covering it up, it actually turns into filial support, for covering it up means not keeping ancestral buddhas or one's own fundamental parents. A festering red-raw person does not return to completeness, takes up burdens, and does not establish the supreme. A person of great preservation has plunged their feet into the mud, which is no small protection. Those coming with mutual integration must directly resemble the words of Mañjuśrī drinking tea, the late master's answer to Yunyan about hoeing ginger, Monk An's words in the Dharma hall, and Yaoshan and Chun Buna washing the Buddha. Among these, the most wondrous integration does not surpass Yaoshan's answer to Daowu about carrying a knife, and Baizhang stepping down from the hall when the assembly was about to disperse but had not yet dispersed, asking, 'What is it?' Yaoshan, hearing these words from afar, said, 'Right here,' which is immediately termed dark-headed integration, borrowing effort to clarify phenomena, borrowing phenomena to clarify effort, borrowing excess to clarify effort, borrowing effort to clarify excess, and so forth. If it is that which transcends and enters the correct rank as brought forth by Yaoshan, Xinfeng, and the former venerable masters, these are already mysterious discourses and extraordinary phrases. Next, arriving at those with minor efficacy, they are drawn into the correct rank; phrases of this type are frequently used. Because of my duties as abbot, with their many entanglements, I have no leisure for full detail and have only briefly clarified a small portion. All of you need not easily disparage or neglect this. If there are further blockages, resolve them in turn; you must exert yourselves in practice so that this matter is not severed into the future, and do not recklessly leak it out. If you encounter someone pure and simple, they are a wondrous vessel; nor must you conceal it from them.)