圓悟佛果禪師語錄 20.144

20.144

The Great Sage of the West appeared from Kapilavastu, manifesting boundless wondrous functions and revealing unique, surpassing causes innumerable as the dust-motes of the realms, beyond conception, to awaken and enlighten all sentient beings. His methods—whether direct or inverse, opening or closing—yielded leftover words and scriptures that brim and overflow the precious treasuries; yet only toward the end did he finally disclose the one real message, calling it a special transmission outside the teachings, transmitting alone the mind seal. Ever since the Golden-Hued Old Man, clearly and unbrokenly, it has treated only of directly pointing to the human mind and seeing into one's nature to become a buddha, establishing no steps or stages and giving rise to no intellectual views. Those of sharp roots and superior wisdom burst through right within the cave of ignorance and slip alive out of the root-stock of afflictions, immediately transcending to realize great liberation. Therefore the four-times-seven of India and the two-times-three of this Eastern Land were all dragons and elephants treading, masters superior and disciples mighty. Dynamic encounters, words and phrases, activities, speech and silence—those of capacity for the supreme vehicle grasp them beyond the usual norms; on the spot their karmic obstacles dissolve like ice, and they shoulder it directly. In all other hours, they are naturally able to maintain and unify it, crossing the world, cutting off the flow, and suddenly tallying with the buddha-ground, yet still unwilling to soak in dead water; giving voice to that which penetrates the profound mystery and surpasses buddhas and ancestors, shaving away dynamic conditions and severing written proclamations, like laying hand to the Tai'e sword—with such chilling divine majesty, who would dare approach? An adept master, accurately weighing and calculating, scolds the slightest trace of transcendent or descending, wondrous nature, principle, or function, for it has never been a weed planted from the start; only when one is fully complete straight through, thoroughly forged and walking on firm ground, does he slightly let him pass, still fearing that at another time he might fall into the weeds and burden others, blinding the eye of the true Dharma. Alas, seeing a whole pack of blindly flailing wild foxes who have never even dreamed of the ancestral masters, yet falsely transmit that Bodhidharma handed down 'embryonic breathing' to people, calling it transmitting the Dharma to save deluded minds! They even cite the most senior ancestral masters of old, such as Master of State An and Zhaozhou, claiming they all practiced this breath control; and they boast of the First Patriarch's single shoe and Puhua's empty coffin, asserting that these arts were verified in them, so that their whole bodies slipped away, calling this 'the wondrous unity of form and spirit.' People in the world deeply cherish this body, fear the panic of the thirtieth day of the twelfth month, and vie to pass along methods of 'returning to the real'—on New Year's Eve looking at their shadows and calling to the master, so as to divine days and months, listening to watchtower drums, checking the 'jade pond', and inspecting the glint of the eyes, taking these as methods for liberation from birth and death. This is truly deceiving the common alleys, fabricating falsities, and inviting the sneers and contempt of lofty individuals! Furthermore, there is a class who falsely attribute to the First Patriarch an 'Exposition of Embryonic Breathing', to Zhaozhou a 'Separate Song of the Twelve Hours', and to Layman Pang a 'Gāthā on Turning the River Chariot', secretly instructing and handing them down to one another to practice, in order to seek longevity, shedding the whole body, or hoping for three or five hundred years of life. Little do they know that this is truly delusional thinking: clinging views, though originally rooted in good causes, unconsciously fall into the wild weeds. Yet heroic and brilliant men, who engage in lofty talk and great debate, looking down upon the ancestral masters, often believe in them. How could they fail to realize that having lost their footing, they 'drew a tiger only to end up with a wildcat'? Caught out by those with discerning knowledge, great reach, and clear eyes, who in the assemblies only observe silently with pity: could the style of Śākyamuni and the successive ancestors amount merely to this? If they had ever reflected upon the beginning and end within themselves, it would naturally be plain to see. Those within the seas who study this Way are as numerous as rice plants, hemp, bamboo, and reeds; those of lofty discernment and far-reaching vision will certainly not drift along. Fearing only that beginners, having newly aroused their aspiration and not yet having penetrated the inner sanctum, might encounter those of overweening pride and be led into this forest of wrong views despite their concentrated resolve and far-reaching strides—making a single mistake at the start that leaves them sunken forever with no turn-back—and seeing this current gradually broaden so that none can check it, I have put forth these clear words, hoping that those with the resolve for great liberation and great dhāraṇī will be able to discern it, enter together into the great ocean of unproduced sarvajñā, and steer a small boat to ferry across all classes of beings, causing the wondrous essence of the true Way to flow boundlessly. Would that not be joyous?