圓悟佛果禪師語錄 13.7

13.7

The Master said: "If you wish to attain intimacy, first of all do not bring anything forth. If you bring it forth, it will not resemble it. When I tell you, 'standing like a wall ten thousand cubits high,' you come back just as before, bumping into walls and striking barricades—how is there any approaching it? Even so, this is already falling into the weeds. I cannot help but follow error with error and speak entangled vines at the secondary level. Do you know? Directly below, it is just like drawing a single sword right in the doorway: with chilling awe and majesty, the moment one steps across the threshold, who dares approach? If you come near it, you lose your body and life; if you look at the precipice and retreat, you are no great hero. You must disregard life and death and snatch it from his hands before you can succeed. Therefore it is said: 'If you do not enter the tiger's den, you cannot get the tiger's cub.' Right before you, you must disregard life itself. If you snatch the sword into your own hands, even if a Buddha comes, you will not spare him. Even if it is like this, it is already the secondary level. Have you not seen Zifu say: 'If you see Zifu's flagpole from across the river and turn back, you deserve thirty blows under your heels'? Muzhou, as soon as he saw a monk coming, would say: 'A ready-made gong'an!' Immediately following, he would say: 'I release you from thirty blows.' With cases like these, how is there any approaching them? Yet when examined closely, they do not fail to cut clean through, sparing one from speaking of the mysterious and marvelous, of principle and phenomena, of the transcendent and descendant, which defile the mind-field. You must know that within each person's lot there is a matter that blazes across past and present, far transcending views and knowledge, stripped bare and stark naked, originally without so many varieties. It is only because you people, from time without beginning, have had thick delusions, turning your backs on yourselves and only seeking from others. If you can reverse the light to illumine inward, there is no second person, and in the end you will not follow another's rising and ceasing. If you attain liberation in one place, you instantly break through in thousands and hundreds of places. Do not merely listen to others' directions on the tips of their tongues; hearing a slight mention, you prick up your ears and walk away—already you are three thousand miles away, having no connection at all. If you attain the functioning within, then you will share the same plumage, becoming a person of his household. Even if there is such a person, he must still swallow his breath and hold his voice in this mountain monk's hands before he can succeed. You must bring down your cloud-head and take all that you have known and understood throughout your life, setting it down before a kalyāṇamitra. If it is right, he will verify it for you; if it is not, he will chop it away for you. Have you not seen: when Yaoshan visited Shitou, he posed a question, saying: 'I roughly know the three vehicles and twelve divisions of the teachings. I have truly heard that in the south they point directly to the human mind, seeing one's nature and becoming a Buddha. I have truly not clarified this; I beg the master for instruction.' Shitou said: 'Being so will not do; not being so will not do; both being so and not being so will not do at all.' Yaoshan did not connect with it, so he went straight to Great Master Ma in Jiangxi and asked as before. Master Ma said: 'Sometimes I have him raise his eyebrows and blink his eyes; sometimes I do not have him raise his eyebrows and blink his eyes. Sometimes having him raise his eyebrows and blink his eyes is right; sometimes having him raise his eyebrows and blink his eyes is not right.' Yaoshan thereupon had an awakening. Ma said: 'What principle did you see?' Yaoshan said: 'When I was at Shitou's, it was like a mosquito biting an iron ox.' Nowadays, the brothers in the assembly say: 'Shitou consistently stood like a wall ten thousand cubits high, which is why he did not understand; Mazu opened a line of leeway, so he attained awakening.' Little do they know that Shitou speaking like that was already letting things leak out; where Mazu spoke, this move was even more lethal. Why was it that Yaoshan attained awakening? Tell me: why was it so? To reach this point, one must be a fellow cast of pig iron before one can succeed. Therefore it is said: 'This matter is not in speech, not in writing.' Look at how he set up a question and asked Shitou, and when he reached Mazu, he asked in the same way—this person had a body and mind of iron and stone. Nowadays, if there were someone with such a mind, why worry that he would not penetrate through? If you only seek words, phrases, the mysterious, and the marvelous, when will there ever be an end? Thousands and myriads of people each speak differently; which phrase would you take to be right? If you have seen the Way, what further use do you have for words and phrases? If you do not use words and phrases, how do you see it? Arriving here, your inquiry must be true inquiry, your awakening must be true awakening, causing it to penetrate through top and bottom, extending through antiquity and modernity; open your own storehouse and transport out your own family treasure for relief—do not just search outside. If you can press through a single path, then you will be a fellow practitioner with me. If you merely cling to this luminous alertness, barking and shouting, raising eyebrows and blinking eyes—this is an even greater illness. Therefore it is said: 'This matter is hidden within the four elements and six sense faculties; the six sense faculties and four elements are merely idle fixtures.' Hence it is said: 'Birth is like putting on a robe; death is like taking off trousers. The six sense faculties and four elements are merely robes and trousers.' Tell me: what kind of person is the one wearing them? Tell me: who is wearing them?" He then gave a shout and said: "Could it be this?" He further said: "Mistaken! Therefore the ancients said: 'Body and mind are one suchness; outside the body there is nothing remaining. The entire cosmos and great earth are just the original mind; the entire mountain and river and great earth—not even a single pinch of dust is wanted.' Since nothing is wanted, tell me: where do you establish body and life? Arriving here, you must have a single path of vital function before you can succeed. If you are not like this, if you say Buddha, you cling to Buddha; if you say Patriarch, you cling to Patriarch. You must be like a single flake of snow on a red-hot stove before you can succeed. Just go beneath your robes and cushion, let it be like cold ashes and dead fire, with neither worldly dharmas nor Buddha Dharma needing any thought. Do not fear falling into emptiness; do not fear being like earth, wood, tile, or stone. If you fear falling into emptiness, just consider: the mind that worries about falling into emptiness—what is it? When did it ever fall into emptiness? If you truly cease to the place of genuine rest, neither Buddhas nor Patriarchs are established, and the Dharma gates of thousands and myriads of sages are all penetrated at once. How could this not be direct and swift?"