大慧普覺禪師語錄 30.11

30.11

左右決欲究竟此事，但常令方寸虛豁豁地，物來即應，如人學射久久中的矣。不見達磨謂二祖曰：「汝但外息諸緣，內心無喘，心如牆壁，可以入道。」如今人纔聞此說，便差排向頑然無知處硬自遏捺，要得心如牆壁去。祖師所謂錯認，何會解方便者也。巖頭云：「纔恁麼便不恁麼。」是句亦剗，非句亦剗，這箇便是外息諸緣，內心無喘底樣子也，縱未得啐地折嚗地破，亦不被語言所轉矣。見月休觀指，歸家罷問程，情識未破，則心火熠熠地，正當恁麼時，但只以所疑底話頭提管，如僧問趙州：「狗子還有佛性也無？」州云：「無。」只管提撕舉覺，左來也不是，右來也不是，又不得將心等悟，又不得向舉起處承當，又不得作玄妙領略，又不得作有無商量，又不得作真無之無卜度，又不得坐在無事甲裏，又不得向擊石火閃電光處會，直得無所用心，心無所之時，莫怕落空，這裏却是好處，驀然老鼠入牛角，便見倒斷也。此事非難非易，除是夙曾種得般若種智之深，曾於無始曠大劫來，承事真善知識，熏習得正知正見在靈識中，觸境遇緣，於現行處築著磕著，如在萬人叢裏認得自家父母相似。當恁麼時，不著問人，自然求覓底心不馳散矣。雲門云：「不可說時即有，不說時便無也。不可商量時便有，不商量時便無也。」又自提起云：「且道不商量時，是箇甚麼？」又怕人不會，又自云：「更是甚麼？」近年以來，禪有多途，或以一問一答末後多一句為禪者，或以古人入道因緣，聚頭商搉云：「這裏是虛，那裏是實。這語玄，那語妙。」或代或別為禪者，或以眼見耳聞和會，在三界唯心萬法唯識上為禪者，或以無言無說，坐在黑山下鬼窟裏，閉眉合眼，謂之威音王那畔父母未生時消息，亦謂之默而常照為禪者。如此等輩，不求妙悟，以悟為落在第二頭，以悟為誑謼人，以悟為建立。自既不曾悟，亦不信有悟底。妙喜常謂衲子輩說：「世間工巧技藝，若無悟處，尚不得其妙，況欲脫生死，而只以口頭說靜，便要收殺。」大似埋頭向東走，欲取西邊物，轉求轉遠，轉急轉遲，此輩名為可憐愍者，教中謂之謗大般若斷佛慧命人，千佛出世不通懺悔。雖是善因，返招惡果。寧以此身碎如微塵，終不以佛法當人情，決要敵生死，須是打破這漆桶始得，切忌被邪師順摩捋，將冬瓜印子印定，便謂我千了百當。如此之輩，如稻麻竹𥯤。左右聰明有識見，必不受這般惡毒，然亦恐用心之切，要求速效，不覺不知，遭他染污。故信筆葛藤如許，被明眼人覷見，一場敗闕。千萬相聽，只以趙州一箇無字，日用應緣處提撕，不要間斷。古德有言：「研窮至理，以悟為則。」若說得天華亂墜，不悟總是癡狂外邊走耳。勉之！不可忽。

If you are resolved to bring this matter to ultimate completion, simply keep your mind constantly open and clear, responding as things come; like someone practicing archery, after a long time they will hit the bullseye. Have you not seen that Bodhidharma said to the Second Patriarch: "You need only externally cease all conditions, inwardly have no panting of breath, and make your mind like a wall; then you can enter the Path." Nowadays, as soon as people hear this talk, they misinterpret it into a state of blunt ignorance, stiffly suppressing themselves, wishing to attain a mind like a wall. What the Patriarch called misapprehension—how can they understand expedient means? Yantou said: "The moment it is so, it is immediately not so." Affirmative phrases are cleared away, negative phrases are also cleared away—this is the very model of externally ceasing all conditions and having no panting of breath within. Even if you have not yet burst through with a sudden snap and pop, you will still not be turned around by words and phrases. When looking at the moon, cease gazing at the finger; upon returning home, stop asking about the road. When emotional consciousness is not yet broken through, the fire of the mind blazes. Just at such a moment, simply take up the huatou you doubt and keep holding to it. For example, a monk asked Zhaozhou: "Does a dog have buddha-nature or not?" Zhou said: "No (Wu)." Just keep bringing it up and calling it to awareness: it is wrong coming from the left, and it is wrong coming from the right. Moreover, you must not use your mind to wait for enlightenment; you must not take it upon yourself at the point where it is raised; you must not comprehend it as profound mystery; you must not deliberate over existence and non-existence; you must not calculate it as the "no" of true nothingness; you must not sit inside the armor of doing nothing; you must not understand it at the flash of sparks struck from stone or lightning. Keep going until there is no place to use the mind, and the mind has nowhere to go. Do not fear falling into emptiness; right here is the good spot. Suddenly, like a rat entering a bull's horn, you will see it cut off. This matter is neither difficult nor easy. Unless you have planted the seeds of prajñā-wisdom deeply in past lives, and have served true spiritual friends through vast and beginningless kalpas, perfuming right knowledge and right view into your luminous consciousness, so that when encountering situations and meeting conditions, you bump against it and stumble upon it in actual practice, like recognizing your own parents in a crowd of ten thousand people. At such a moment, without needing to ask others, naturally the seeking mind will not scatter. Yunmen said: "When it cannot be spoken, it is there; when it is not spoken, it is gone. When it cannot be deliberated, it is there; when it is not deliberated, it is gone." Then he brought it up himself, saying: "Tell me, when it is not deliberated, what is it?" Fearing again that people would not understand, he added himself: "What else could it be?" In recent years, Chan has had many paths: some take one question and one answer with an extra phrase at the end to be Chan; some gather together to deliberate over the ancients' conditions for entering the Path, saying, "Here is empty, there is solid; this phrase is profound, that phrase is wondrous," taking substitutions or alternative phrases to be Chan; some harmonize visual forms and sounds heard with the ear, taking it to be Chan based on "the three realms are mind-only, the myriad dharmas are consciousness-only"; some have no words and no speech, sitting in the ghosts' cave beneath the Black Mountain, closing their eyebrows and shutting their eyes, calling it news from the other side of King of Majestic Voice before one's parents were born, and also calling it silent illumination to be Chan. Such types do not seek wondrous awakening; they regard awakening as falling into the secondary; they regard awakening as deceiving people; they regard awakening as a contrivance. Since they themselves have never awakened, neither do they believe that there is any awakened one. Miaoxi often says to the patch-robed monks: "If one lacks awakening even in worldly crafts and arts, one still cannot attain their subtle wonder; how much less when wishing to be liberated from birth and death, yet only talking of quietude with the mouth and expecting to bring it to a close!" It is very much like putting one's head down and running east while wanting to grab things on the west: the more you seek, the further away it is; the more urgent you are, the more delayed it is. Such people are called objects of pity; in the teachings they are called those who slander great prajñā and sever the Buddha's wisdom-life; even if a thousand buddhas appear in the world, they cannot receive repentance. Though it began as a good cause, it turns around to bring an evil result. I would rather this body be pulverized like fine dust than treat the Buddhadharma as worldly sentiment. If you are resolved to confront birth and death, you must break through this lacquer tub before you can succeed. Strictly avoid having a false teacher stroke you smoothly and seal you with a winter-melon seal, whereupon you say that you are completely finished with everything. People of this sort are as numerous as stalks of rice, hemp, and bamboo. With your intelligence and insight, you will surely not swallow such foul poison; however, I also fear that through the earnestness of your application of mind and your desire for quick results, you may unknowingly and unconsciously be defiled by them. Therefore, letting my brush run on into such entanglements, if a person with clear eyes were to catch sight of this, it would be a total failure. I urge you ten thousand times to heed this: just take Zhaozhou's single word "No" (Wu) and bring it to awareness in the midst of daily response to conditions, never letting it be interrupted. An ancient worthy said: "To investigate the ultimate principle, take awakening as the criterion." If you speak so eloquently that heavenly flowers fall in confusion, yet are not awakened, it is all just the frantic running about of an insane person outside. Strive for it! Do not neglect it.