圓悟佛果禪師語錄 8.34

8.34

Addressing the assembly, he said: "Solitarily rowing a skiff, drifting on the Five Lakes; on the hook now and then a fine fish is caught. Today the four seas are as clear as a mirror; are there any golden scales rising to the hook? Let those who risk their lives come forth from the assembly to meet!"
A monk asked: "Past Buddhas were like this, present Buddhas are like this, future Buddhas will also be like this. I wonder, what about the Venerable?"
The Master said: "What is 'like this'?"
The monk said: "It is precisely like this."
The Master said: "A shrimp cannot leap out of the basket."
The monk continued: "I ask the Venerable to speak a phrase about leaping out of the basket."
The Master said: "The skiff has already passed Lake Dongting."
He then said: "When there is movement, shadows appear; when there is perception, ice forms. Without movement and without perception, one sinks flat in dead water; having both moved and perceived, one cannot avoid wounding one's edge and hurting one's hand. Arriving here, how can it be proclaimed? How can one help others? Even so, when the law is executed to the utmost, there are no citizens. An ancient said: 'This plot of land has been handed over for a long time. I stand waiting for you to grasp it.' Do you know where it settles? Before King of Awesome Voice, on that side of the empty kalpa, this plot of land stood firm and unmoving. When the four modes of birth surge forth and the myriad phenomena proliferate, when worlds change and fluctuate, and death and birth transform, this plot of land also stands firm and unmoving. Even when the kalpa is destroyed by the three disasters and the vairambha wind rises, blowing the great earth apart into fine dust, this plot of land also stands firm and unmoving. The Buddhas' appearance in the world and the Patriarchs' coming from the West were precisely to clarify this plot of land. The ancestral masters of past generations and the venerable elders of the world, having devised skillful means in a thousand ways and ten thousand schemes, have all exerted their utmost to uphold this plot of land. Even so, in the end no one has been able to directly speak it out face-to-face. Can you grasp it? Level on all eight sides, clear and austere in all four directions, the ten thousand dharmas cannot cover it, the thousand sages dare not confront it. If you can grasp it, when one is resolved, all are resolved; when one is accomplished, all are accomplished; when one is seen, all are seen; when one is attained, all are attained. Therefore it is said: 'As soon as a speck of dust is raised, the great earth is completely gathered in. A lion on the tip of a single hair manifests simultaneously on the tips of a hundred billion hairs.' It is only because of clinging to deluded feelings that there is no time of penetration and liberation; being content to remain among the profane, one cannot cut straight through. If you can let go, with not a single dharma facing your mind, and not a single object attached to your mind, vastly unbounded and natural, it is just like pressing a gourd down on water: as soon as it is touched it turns, as soon as it is pushed it moves; it cannot be dragged back or entangled. Moving and still, speaking and silent, it covers heaven and covers earth. A clear-eyed fellow has no fixed nest; repelling objects is superior, pursuing objects is inferior. If we speak of battle, everyone's strength lies at the turning point; what high and low is there to doubt, what right and wrong to fear? Rushing straight to the gate and biting people with burning urgency—is this not an heroic, eminent fellow? Is there anyone like this in the assembly? Come forth to bear witness, making one long remember General Li: a falcon flying across ten thousand leagues of sky."