大慧普覺禪師語錄 15.2.5

15.2.5

Going straight to Jiashan's abbot's quarters, without bowing, he stood face to face with folded hands. Jiashan said, 'A chicken roosting in a phoenix's nest is not of the same kind; get out!' Luopu said, 'Having hastened from afar toward your wind, I beg the master to receive me.' Jiashan said, 'Before my eyes there is no ācārya; here there is no old monk.' Luopu gave a shout. Jiashan said, 'Stop, stop! Do not be hasty and hurried. Clouds and moon are the same; valleys and mountains are distinct. Cutting off the tongues of the whole world is indeed not absent, but how does the ācārya cause a tongueless person to understand speech?'" The master said: "Luopu bowed his head in thought. Failing to understand this one incantation, he was struck across the spine by Jiashan, his nostrils were pierced, and he subsequently became Jiashan's dharma heir. Later he instructed the assembly, saying: 'Only with the final word does one reach the firm pass; barring the crucial ford, it allows no passage to ordinary or holy. One must know that a person of the superior stream does not paste the views of buddhas and patriarchs onto their forehead, like an auspicious turtle carrying a chart, bringing about the basis of its own destruction.'" The master said: "After his awakening, he was able to clarify this one incantation of his, this bit of starter medicine. Whether under Yunmen, Linji, Caodong, Fayan, or Guiyang, if the Great Dharma is not clear, each takes their own school as their school, their own teacher as their teacher, their own father as their father, their own child as their child, merely attending to the school's tenets, agitated and unessential. When this old fellow was in the assembly, I once sought instruction from a senior venerable: 'In the Chan school it is said: within speech there is no speech, within no speech there is speech.' The senior venerable cited an attestation for me, saying: 'Within speech there is no speech: meeting a dead snake on the road, do not strike it dead; carrying it back in a bottomless basket. This is called within speech there is no speech, and also called within no speech there is speech. What is within speech there is no speech? Meeting a dead snake on the road, do not strike it dead. What is within no speech there is speech? Carrying it back in a bottomless basket. This single line alone possesses both meanings: "Meeting a dead snake on the road, do not strike it dead" is within no speech there is speech; "Carrying it back in a bottomless basket" is within speech there is no speech. It means that since it is already a dead snake, there is no need to strike it dead.' He also said: 'What is difference within sameness? An egret standing in the snow is not the same color. What is sameness within difference? The bright moon and reed flowers do not resemble each other.' When I spoke like this, you understood it, but what help was it? Do not study things like this. After the Great Dharma is clear, if a single hair is raised, one understands it all at once, just like the story of Aṅgulimāla. As for the expedient means spoken by Zhantang, 'I have only just entered the Way' is of no use, and 'the Buddha has spiritual penetrations' is also of no use. Since they are of no use, why was the child born? If you see here, old Śākya is Aṅgulimāla, and Aṅgulimāla is old Śākya; if you do not understand, Śākya is Śākya, Aṅgulimāla is Aṅgulimāla, and it has nothing to do with the family with difficult childbirth." Then, joining his palms, he said: "May the merit of every word and phrase conforming to the buddhas and patriarchs from bringing up and upholding prajñā above be dedicated to Lady Anren Lü, the deceased wife of Policy Advisor Qian. We humbly pray that passing away from here and appearing there, she may always be a close relation of prajñā; casting off this body and receiving a body, she may forever be a kin of bodhi." Calling to the great assembly, he said: "Do you understand thoroughly? If you wish to rest right now, do not remember what I have said today." Giving a shout, he descended the seat.