圓悟佛果禪師語錄 4.18

4.18

Ascending the hall on the first day of the eighth month, the Master said: "Rooting out the dens and nests of the three realms, releasing the true person of no rank, penetrating through the brambles and thorns of the monastic groves, one then abides in the Land of Constant Silent Light. Neither identical nor different, it outshines antiquity and transcends the present; neither form nor mind, it surpasses lineages and oversteps categories. Pure and naked, it leaves behind all acceptance; bright and exposed, it admits no mutual evasion. Right now, on the crown of each of your heads, it penetrates through everything. If each of you can reverse the light and observe inward, you will sit in your own family hall. Therefore an ancestral master said: 'There is one thing that supports heaven above and props up earth below, constantly present in dynamic activity, yet uncontainable within dynamic activity.' This is called the fundamental source Buddha-nature manifestly realized. Disciples of the lineage of theoretical understanding further say: 'To speak of it as resembling a single thing misses the mark,' but they also cannot avoid getting entangled in the three inches of the tongue. One must directly succeed in not falling into ordinary sentiments and not being restricted by standard forms. If you can settle this right here, you will no longer need to point east and draw west. If you cannot settle it, you will unavoidably have repeated explanations directed at you. Have you not heard it said: 'There is a thing prior to heaven and earth, formless, originally silent and still; it can serve as the master of myriad phenomena, and does not wither with the four seasons.' Since it does not wither with the four seasons and can serve as the master of myriad phenomena, when the road ahead is cut off directly before you, how do you proceed? Do you understand? Where is it hot in the autumn of the eighth month?" He also said: "Rouse your own spirit and seize what belongs to your own home! Like severing a skein of silk, make no distinction between before and after. When force and blade operate together, a single cut severs all. If you can accept this atop the sword's blade, you will swallow down the waters of the West River in a single gulp."