圓悟佛果禪師語錄 2.7

2.7

Ascending the hall, a monk asked, "I do not ask about the fifteenth day; what is the Master's single phrase that clearly guides people?" The Master said, "Directly confronted, it is seen definitely without a hair's breadth; if you hesitate and deliberate, you are separated by ten thousand mountains." A monk asked, "Right during the Lantern Festival, where is the water buffalo?" The Master said, "Struck by an iron staff, the scar is exposed." The Master then said, "Pushing aside dust to see the Buddha cannot avoid throwing sand into the eyes; hearing sounds and awakening to the Way is also putting water in the ears. Even if you reach where sentient beings and Buddhas have no hierarchy and the empty realm is entirely equal, cleanly exposed beyond all thinking, stripped bare with nothing to grasp, you have still not left the matters of this side. You must further wield the Vajra jewel sword to sever disputes and take up the staff of killing and giving life to break through gain and loss—yet even then you have not clarified the transcendent opening. If perchance you possess the spirit of a great hero and have the hammer and tongs for forging Buddhas and patriarchs, directly undertaking it on that side, then coming back here, horizontally three and vertically four, sitting as one and walking as seven, you shoulder the lineage vehicle and uphold the ancestral seal. Sometimes releasing: the same as that and the same as this, manifesting bodies in accord with kinds, harmonizing with the light and accommodating things. Sometimes holding back: do not say the Buddha's eye cannot catch sight of it; even if the grasses and trees of the entire earth were all to transform into hundreds of millions of bodies emitting countless rays of light, they could not shine upon it. And tell me: right now, how is it? If not for shooting the stone tiger at Lantian, General Li would almost have been killed in error." He stepped down from the seat.