圓悟佛果禪師語錄 15.6

15.6

At the crucial point, it does not take a single prick; if there is blood beneath the skin, one naturally knows the landing place. If you hesitate, you lose your nostrils. It was already like this prior to the seven Buddhas. You must firmly pull yourself together, brace your scalp, and clearly and distinctly realize this patch of land. Only through steady concealment over a long time will you naturally know how to take a step back, never saying: 'I have a view, I have a wondrous understanding.' Why is this? If within this there is established even the slightest thorn of subject-and-object views, it will be heavier than mountains and peaks; from of old, this has never been permitted. Therefore, Śākyamuni received prediction from Dīpaṃkara Buddha because of no Dharma; Old Lu had the robe and bowl intimately entrusted to him at Huangmei because originally not a thing exists. As for the juncture of life and death, as soon as you shoulder it yourself, it is like a sacred turtle shedding its shell; you must rely on neither the clean nor the defiled extremes. Having mind and having no mind, having views and having no views, are like a flake of snow touching a red-hot stove. Throughout the twenty-four hours of the day, penetrating from top to bottom, unconstrained and untrammeled, roaming where the thousand sages do not travel in the same way, straightaway bring it to ripeness and natural accomplishment, obtaining the state of having finished study and being without contrivance, being a true person whom thousands or myriads cannot entangle.