法演禪師語錄 3.18

3.18

Ascending the hall, he said: "Boundless Body Bodhisattva took a bamboo staff to measure the World-Honoured One's crown: sixteen feet, and sixteen feet again, measuring all the way to the Brahmā Heaven without seeing the mark of the World-Honoured One's crown. Thereupon he threw down the bamboo staff, joined his palms, and spoke a verse: / 'Empty space has no boundary; / the Buddha's merit is also like this. / If someone were able to measure it, / throughout exhausted kalpas it could not be depleted.' / Great assembly! Set aside the verse spoken by Boundless Body Bodhisattva; do you all understand how to measure yourselves? If you have this old monk measure himself, there is simply no place to begin. Have you not seen the ancients say: 'A peck-measure filling the Buddha's seat: its merit is hard to measure; burning incense in a small saucer: purple clouds drift hazily.' Why is it like this? Another realm of spring entirely."