圓悟佛果禪師語錄 14.11

14.11

For a person of sharp faculties and superior wisdom, hearing once and awakening to a thousand things is not difficult in this matter. One must have a firm and solid footing, verify with thorough faith, hold fast and take charge, and forge into one piece all agreeable and contrary realms along with differentiated conditions. Like empty space without the slightest obstruction, clear, still, empty, and luminous without change, remaining completely uniform from beginning to end through hundreds of kalpas and thousands of lifetimes—only then can one be steady and secure. One often sees clever and bright individuals whose roots are buoyant and footing shallow; as soon as they recognize verbal shifts, they consider nothing in the world to surpass them, whereupon their thorns of views grow, displaying ability, understanding, and quick fluency of speech, thinking that the Buddhadharma is merely this. When circumstances and conditions arise, they fail to penetrate and escape, and thus fall into hesitation and retreat, which is truly lamentable. Therefore, the ancients truly tasted all of the thousands of demons and myriad difficulties; even if cut into pieces in seven places, they did not stir a thought, maintaining their minds resolutely like iron and stone, so that penetrating and escaping birth and death took no effort at all. Is this not what a great person of transcendent attainment and noble magnanimity preserves?