圓悟佛果禪師語錄 10.5

10.5

The Master said: "There is an echo within words; within the phrase, dynamic sharpness is presented. Knowing what is to come by telling what has gone; grasping the beginning and understanding the end—only such a person can understand such a matter. Take all of you, for example: just now, when the bell had not yet sounded, the drum had not yet beaten, and you had not yet arrived here, were there all these many matters? Was there any principle of question and answer? If one is an adept, one knows before anything is raised and penetrates before anything is spoken; and when principle follows phenomena in shifting, and phenomena pursue principle to completion—the bell having sounded and the drum having beaten—the great assembly crowds upward in this way, with question and answer, guest and host. Tell me, is there still such a matter within this? If there were such a definite principle, that would be deceiving one another to the face; in reality, there is no such matter. Since there is no such matter, what then is it? You must know that for ten thousand miles there is not a scrap of cloud, for ten thousand miles not an inch of grass. Therefore it is said: 'If you wish to be intimate, do not bring a question to ask.' Sometimes the question is in the place of the answer; sometimes the answer is in the place of the question. Although it is like this, fundamentally the question is not in the place of the answer, and the answer is not in the place of the question. It is also said: 'It is not that the ācārya does not bring it; it is not that this mountain monk does not bestow it.' Possessing the vajra eye within this, undertaking it upon the ground of your fundamental lot, then there is neither what is acceptable nor what is unacceptable. I venture to ask the great assembly: how do you express the phrase that gets to reality? Without clarifying the seal of the mind ground, it is difficult to pass through Zhaozhou's barrier. He stepped down from the seat."