圓悟佛果禪師語錄 8.33

8.33

Addressing the assembly, he said: "The Great Way originally has no facing toward or turning away; the moment you intend to approach it, you have already gone astray. One who can roar with a formidable snarl is indeed a golden-haired lion cub. Is there anyone like this? Step forth from the assembly and meet!"
A monk asked: "What is the phrase that settles heaven and earth?"
The Master said: "I alone am revered."
The monk continued: "I shall throw my body across the universe."
The Master said: "You deserve thirty blows with the staff."
The monk said: "Please proceed."
The Master said: "I allow that you are bold."
The monk asked: "What kind of speech is this?"
The Master said: "Just wait until the rain pours over your head, and then I will strike."
He then said: "Before the omens have divided, it has already become exposed; the moment words and phrases are established, discord is deliberately produced. Nevertheless, the gate of the secondary meaning is not yet wallowing in mud and mixing with water. Great assembly! Do you still know this matter? Cutting off the thousand divergent roads, not establishing a single speck of dust, towering and magnificent, radiant and dazzling, covering heaven and covering earth, responding to sound and responding to form, not treading the same path with the thousand sages, not taking the ten thousand dharmas as companions, rolling up and unfurling at ease, without grasping and without clinging. If you see it, you can move freely over the tips of the hundred grasses, sitting and lying amidst heaps of sound and form. Verbal explanations cannot reach it; analogies cannot capture it; knowing cannot know it; perceiving cannot perceive it. It is not mind, not Buddha, not things, not sacred, not profane, not existence, not non-existence, not right, not wrong, not gain, not loss; being like this does not work, not being like this does not work either. Arriving here, how can it be set forth? How can it be proclaimed? The mountain monk finds his mouth just like a flat carrying pole: no principle can be extended, no words can be spoken. Even so, though the official does not permit a needle, privately carts and horses may pass through. Opening a slit of a path, there is room for discussion."
Holding up his fist, he said: "Do you still see? The Buddhas appeared in the world by means of this; the Patriarchs came from the West by means of this; the ancestral masters of past generations received beings and benefited living beings by means of this; the venerable teachers of the world forged and disciplined patch-robed monks by means of this. When it is held fast, heaven and earth lose their color, the sun and moon lose their light, and all people throughout the great earth lose their bodies and forfeit their lives. When it is let go, cliffs and valleys give off light, the myriad phenomena shine brightly, following the long and following the short, following existence and following non-existence, everywhere is real, and everything is overtly revealed. Tell me: is it better to hold fast, or is it better to let go? Thirty years from now, when meeting people, you must not cite this incorrectly."