明覺禪師語錄 6.3

6.3

During the Tianxi reign era, I lodged at Lingyin and became friends with Chan Practitioner Baozhen. Whether traveling or residing, we bowed to one another in morality and righteousness, responding and reciprocated, cool and detached, naturally rejoicing in heavenly nature. One day Venerable Zhen said to me: 'I recently happened to compose a thirty-rhyme Praise of the Three Treasures. I invite you to sing in response.' Thereupon, unrolling it and admiring it with praise, I casually continued it, like an insect gnawing wood. Soon after, parting like flying birds toward Wu and Chu for nearly twenty years, I no longer remembered it at all. Venerable Zhen did not consider the distance in time or separation in sincerity, and sent a monk named Ruyan from afar to deliver it. Peering once more at my crude and unpolished work, shame and solace gathered together. Now, when sages establish words, they must foreshadow the void and plunge into the profound, causing men beyond the letters to jointly revive the ancient style and transmit it for ten million generations; and how could one know whether those who come after will reach it or not, when the Way resides within it? These words of praise were never meant to seek fame or wait for an occasion; merely gazing with reverence from afar toward the ancestral aims of the King of Awakening and his Chan followers, I proclaim them and put them into practice. How could I not compose this humble preface?