圓悟佛果禪師語錄 15.35

15.35

The Buddhas and Patriarchs directly point to this Great Dharma, which shines completely beneath the feet of everyone, like a thousand suns rising together. Yet having long run after external pursuits, people cannot have faith in themselves that they possess such great majestic virtue and light. They only occupy themselves with being clever and setting up views and understandings; amidst their karmic delusions, they think they have surpassed their peers, showing off and feeling self-satisfied before the mundane world. Extensively investigating and broadly perusing what has been learned from ancient times to the present, they claim to have penetrated to the utmost depths, entirely unaware that the light of a firefly can hardly compare to the sun. Therefore, extraordinary and heroic figures of old who possessed outstanding dispositions—to speak of recent ones, those of the company of Prime Minister Pei and Yang Danian—sincerely laid everything down, sought out ancestral masters for discernment and determination, swept away floating dust and views, and attained great awakening and great realization. Only then were they able to transcend, walking shoulder to shoulder in practice with seasoned Chan elders and great virtues. When coming to the final decisive moment, they knew of themselves how to let go of their hands and were able to realize great liberation. How could this be a minor matter! Now your brilliance and acuity are in no way inferior to your predecessors; your scholarship and talent have long surged through the ways of the world. Although you knew that this matter existed in the ancestral school, you considered it not to go beyond what you already honored, and you paid no real heed to it. Meeting through a great affinity from the past, spending years together at Oufeng, the moment you heard it expounded, you gave rise to deep faith and reversed the light to illumine inward. Looking upon the human world as a dream and an illusion, changing and extinguishing along with the great transformation, it is mere vanity. Only this [nature] does not decay or shift throughout a thousand kalpas; it is the root of all sages and worthies, the fountainhead of creation. Confirming it in oneself, if it is once illuminated, it is thoroughly unimpeded in all directions—wherever one goes, how could one not be self-possessed? From this we know that in past lives you were indeed perfumed by it; encountering the conditions, it has become manifest in your conduct. Is this not one's own nature? However, if you can examine yourself, to study the Buddha Dharma throughout the twelve periods of the day is already to employ the mind in a scattered way; if you do away with the Buddha Dharma, then you will be walking in the truly pure realm. Just please rely on this and keep completely unadulterated; then it will be unified and brightly clear, free of love and hate, apart from taking up and letting go, not distinguishing self and other, not making gain and loss. All phenomena are level and calm—all are the wondrous, round, clear, enjoyable possessions of our own home's inconceivable place. You must make this mind manifest at all times, neither falling into dull torpor nor giving rise to clever wisdom, entering an equal, tranquil, and quiet realm. How could bad actions, karmic conditions, and conscious emotions disturb this fundamentally wondrous brightness? One only fears that when facing circumstances, everything will be completely forgotten right before you, becoming as chaotic as before—that will not do. The cultivation of the ancients was also merely using what they had realized and entered, illuminating and cutting through worldly toils at all times, making it briskly alive. Through twenty or thirty years of thorough ripening, going beyond birth and death was not difficult. The effort lies in the place of practice, not merely in vain, lofty talk. The ancients said: 'Speaking a chang is not as good as practicing a chi.' Because the power of samādhi and wisdom turns around karmic conditions, what is truly needed is to be clear, brave, and resolute; then you will enjoy its use throughout hundreds and thousands of lifetimes. As for the rest of the ancient masters' encounters and verbal expressions, it is not necessary to understand all of them. Once one move is clear, then every move is like this; how could ten thousand changes and transformations alter its power and function? When the inner mind is empty and external conditions are also quiet, wearing clothes and eating food are fundamentally authentic and require no carving and polishing. If you should set up superior views or pride yourself on your ability, that would be a disaster. You must take great care and not adopt such an attitude. From this you can enter the selfless, real, equal, such-like, immovable, unchanging, purely wondrous, cool, and securely hidden ground. Master Baozhi said: 'Not giving rise to the slightest mind of cultivation and study, / Constantly at ease within the formless light.'