圓悟佛果禪師語錄 8.30

8.30

An informal gathering while residing at Tianning Monastery in Chengdu Prefecture. The master instructed the assembly, saying: "The correct command having already been executed, the ten directions are cut off; should a thousand sages come forth, their sharp edges would be lost and their tongues tied. Although this is so, affairs do not go in only one direction. Are there any patch-robed monks who live together and die together?"
At that time a monk asked: "Do not say that having no mind is itself the Way; having no mind is still separated by another barrier. What is this barrier?"
The master said: "There are even ten layers."
[The monk] asked further: "Who is the master inside the barrier?"
The master said: "I let you off this move."
[The monk] asked further: "What sort of countenance?"
The master gave a shout. The master then said: "Just like this is already too meddlesome. Nowadays, even if you could cite a phrase of words and completely clarify at once the ancient and modern teachings, that would precisely be blending mud and mixing water. Even if you took up a single thing and saw through the entire great earth at once, that too would be gouging a wound in healthy flesh. Look at those from of old who attained it: their mouths were like twelfth-month fans until mold grew on them; their minds were like withered wood, which even encountering spring and summer never changed or stirred. It was not forced action; it was naturally so. Why would you need to cite the ancient and clarify the modern, flinging sand and scattering soil?
"Tonight, as things cannot be helped, making the best of a mistake, I shall spin vines with you all. Do you know of this matter? Exhausting the worlds of the ten directions and reaching the limits of empty space, there is not the slightest leak; it is a diamond eye, with no other external objects. Therefore I constantly say to the brothers: 'The moment you look at form, your eyes are already blocked; the moment you listen to sound, your ears are already blocked; the moment you smell fragrance, your nose is already blocked; the moment you exhale breath, your throat is already blocked; the moment you move or shift, your body is already blocked; the moment you give rise to a thought, your mind is already blocked.' At the gates of the six senses, it is completely bare and stripped naked, only you are unwilling to reverse the light to illumine inward. Look at those ancients who accorded with realization under the words of former worthies—when they communicated a message, how intimately direct it was!
"Shuiliao was given a kick by Mazu, got up, laughed loudly, and said: 'The hundreds of thousands of Dharma gates and immeasurable subtle meanings—I have come to recognize their source right on the tip of a single hair! How delightful!' Linji raised questions to Huangbo three times and received sixty blows with the staff; when he arrived before Dayu, he unconsciously blurted out: 'There is actually not much to Huangbo's Buddhadharma!' Having attained it like this, does it not astound the crowd?
"Gentlemen, have you ever caught this message? If you examine it back and forth and genuinely obtain an entry, you will first know that throughout the twenty-four hours, walking, standing, sitting, lying down, moving, shifting, and operating are all, one by one, transcendent of the ancient and beyond the modern, uninterrupted and unceasing, walking hand in hand with the patriarchs and Buddhas of old. Usually one just keeps to leisure, not giving rise to the slightest worldly or sacred feelings and reckonings. What further gain and loss could there be to doubt, what life and death could there be to escape?
"Talk like this can be said to be speaking of dreams where there are no dreams and stirring up trouble where there is no trouble before you gentlemen. If someone unable to hold back were suddenly to come forth, shout to scatter the great assembly, drag me down from the rope chair, and give me a sound thrashing, one could not blame him. Although it is so, one must genuinely reach this field before it counts. Is there such a person nowadays? This mountain monk would willingly take a thrashing, just wanting to meet with such a person. Is there anyone? Is there anyone? If not, this mountain monk suffers a defeat tonight."