圓悟佛果禪師語錄 9.4

9.4

Informal gathering at the beginning of the summer retreat. The Master said: "Great assembly! The ready-made gong'an is consummated in every touch. Although I am old, sick, and decrepit, I can still unfurl the battle array beneath the gate flags. Is there anyone with a single horse and a single spear who has long fought on the battlefield? Come forth and bear witness together." A monk asked: "Confining the feet for ninety days and protecting life for three months: just as Nanquan cut the calico cat, dividing its body in two, and when the banded snake encountered the Red-Eyed One, it took a hoe straight to the ground—I wonder, was this keeping [the precepts] or breaking them?" The Master said: "Even breaking the precepts was unknown to them." The monk said: "The great function is unconstrained, a model for past and present." The Master said: "The body is still divided in two." The monk said: "If that is so, the jade chopsticks prop open the tiger's eyes, and the golden whip breaks Nata's arm." The Master said: "Where do you see Nanquan and Guizong?" The monk said: "Right before our eyes." The Master said: "Double talk is unpalatable." A monk asked: "In India, the wax man was used as a test. I wonder, what is used as a test here?" The Master said: "The eyebrows are used as a test." The monk said: "Do you still permit this student to come out?" The Master said: "Blink and look up further." The monk said: "I only fear I cannot catch sight of it." The Master said: "The short is short, the long is long; what is there that cannot be caught sight of?" The Master then said: "The complete presentation, the single critique, severing nails and shearing iron, scolding the Buddhas and reviling the Patriarchs with great function and great potential, still do not live up to a patch-robed monk's fundamental lot, not to mention setting up questions and answers, setting up guest and host, touching upon words and phrases, speaking of the mysterious and marvelous, making trouble out of nothing, and raising waves on level ground. Although it is like this, affairs are not one-sided, and principle issues from many paths; although one trims the sails to the wind, one cannot avoid playing the drinking game according to the company. Do you not see what the ancients said: 'If you wish to know the meaning of Buddha-nature, you should observe the conditions of time and season. When the time and season arrive, its principle becomes manifest of itself.' Just take tonight and tomorrow morning: this is the pattern established two thousand years ago by old man Śākya, the season for confining the feet for ninety days and protecting life for three months, which the monastic groves throughout the world all uphold and rely upon. Since this season has arrived, is there anyone who recognizes this principle? If you can recognize this principle, then wherever you are you act as master, and whatever circumstances you meet is the ancestral lineage; throughout the twelve two-hour periods there is no inside or outside, no gain or loss; the entire body is just like this, and there is also no life to be protected, nor any wax man to be held. If perhaps you have not, one should pity the goose protecting the snow, directly making the wax man freeze." The Master continued: "Great assembly! Old man Śākya said: 'Taking great perfect awakening as my monastery, body and mind dwell peacefully in the wisdom of equality.' Since all of you wish to dwell peacefully, do you still recognize the wisdom of equality? If you can recognize it, everyone is fully equipped and each one is consummated, and even movement, stillness, application, and action are all within the great monastery; walking hand in hand with all the sages, performing Buddha work together with all the sages. And how will you recognize it? Beneath the three rafters, before the seven-foot mat, each of you should look after it. You have been standing long."