圓悟佛果禪師語錄 14.42

14.42

This great Dharma was realized together by the Buddhas of the three periods of time and transmitted jointly by the six generations of patriarchs, confirmed by a single seal, directly pointing to the human mind to see its nature and attain Buddhahood, not establishing written words or phrases, which is called a special transmission outside the teachings, the singular transmission of the mind-seal. If you get involved with verbal explanations and public notices, establishing steps and ladders, evaluating within conventions or outside conventions, you lose the fundamental lineage and let down the ancient sages. At the very outset of practice, you must meet a person of the fundamental lot who cuts straight to the source. Take a step back and return to yourself; with a mind of iron and stone, throw away completely and all at once your former deluded thoughts and views, worldly knowledge and clever eloquence, and self and other, gain and loss. Be directly like withered wood and cold ashes, sentiments exhausted and views eradicated, reaching the place where you are clean and stripped bare. In an instant, you will accord and verify, not differing by the slightest hair from all the sages of the past. If you can have complete faith and see through clearly, this is the beginning of entering the gate of principle. Furthermore, you must make one thought ten thousand years, and ten thousand years one thought, pure and unmixed throughout the twelve periods of the day. As soon as a speck of dust arises and ceases, you fall into the twenty-five realms of existence with no time of departure. Struggle for life and death, biting through it, and only then will your ground be secure and dense, unable to be contained within the ranks of ordinary or sage. Only then will you be like a bird leaving the cage, resting and settling by yourself, taking the seat and donning the robe, like true gold refined a hundred times. All movements and activities are naturally vast and open; sense faculties and dusts, life and death, object and wisdom, mystery and wonder, are like hot water poured onto snow. Then you naturally know the time, having nothing beyond your lot, and are called a person of the Way without mind. Cultivating oneself through this and turning to awaken the unawakened, causing them to practice like this—how could this not be the essential path!