大慧普覺禪師語錄 17.7

17.7

Court Gentleman for Consultation Qian requested a general sermon. The master said: "The Dharma cannot be seen, heard, sensed, or known. If one practices seeing, hearing, sensing, and knowing, that is seeing, hearing, sensing, and knowing, not seeking the Dharma. Once outside seeing, hearing, sensing, and knowing, what would you call the Dharma? Coming to this point, it is like a person drinking water: self-knowing its cold and warmth; unless personally confirmed and personally awakened, it cannot be seen. If one has truly confirmed and awakened to it, raising a single tip of a fine hair, the entire earth is illuminated all at once. Nowadays, not only Chan monks, but also literati who are clever, sharp, and widely read in many books—every single one has two kinds of illness: if not fixing their intention, then they let their minds go blank. Letting the mind go blank, they fall into the ghosts' cave beneath the Black Mountain; in the teachings this is called torpor. Fixing their intention, their conscious mind flutters in disarray, thought succeeding thought—before the former thought ceases, the latter thought continues; in the teachings this is called restlessness. They do not know that under everyone's own feet is this one great matter that neither sinks [into torpor] nor flutters [in restlessness]. Like heaven universally covering, like earth universally supporting: before there was a world, there was already this great matter; when the world is destroyed, this great matter has never stirred by a single hair's breadth. Most literati tend toward restlessness. Nowadays in various quarters there is a type of silent illumination heterodox Chan: seeing literati hindered by worldly dust and their minds ill at ease, they immediately teach them to be like cold ashes and withered wood, like a strip of white silk, like an incense burner in an ancient temple, chillingly cold, using this to bring people to rest. Tell me: can they really be brought to rest? Little do they know that if this monkey is not dead, how can it be brought to rest? If that which comes as the vanguard and goes as the rearguard is not dead, how can it be brought to rest? In former years this fashion was extremely prevalent in Fujian Circuit. When Miaoxi first entered Fujian and lived in a hermitage during the early Shaoxing era, he vigorously opposed it, calling it the severing of the Buddha's wisdom-life, for which repentance is inadmissible even if a thousand buddhas appear in the world. Among them was a scholar named Zheng Shangming, extremely intelligent: he understood the teachings of the Buddhist vehicles, he understood the Daoist Canon, and Confucian teachings went without saying. One day, carrying a piece of incense, he entered Miaoxi's room with palpable fury, his voice and expression both severe, saying: 'I have a piece of incense not yet burned; I wish to settle a matter with the Venerable. Silence without words is the foremost resting place within the Dharma gate, yet the Venerable slanders and scolds it at will. In my mind I suspect that the Venerable has not reached this stage, which is why I cannot believe in you. Consider how Old Man Śākyamuni in the country of Magadha shut his room and made no sound for three seven-day periods: was that not the Buddha being silent? In the city of Vaiśālī thirty-two bodhisattvas each expounded the non-dual Dharma gate, and at the end Vimalakīrti was speechless, praised by Mañjuśrī: was that not a bodhisattva being silent? Subhūti sat in quiet meditation in a cliff cavern, without words and without speech: was that not a śrāvaka being silent? Śakra, Lord of the Gods, seeing Subhūti sitting in quiet meditation in the cavern, rained flowers in offering, also without words: was that not an ordinary being being silent? Bodhidharma traveled through Liang and traversed Wei, sitting coldly at Shaolin for nine years: was that not an ancestral master being silent? Whenever Luzu saw a monk he would face the wall: was that not a lineage master being silent? For what reason does the Venerable vigorously oppose silent illumination, deeming it heterodox and wrong?' Miaoxi said: 'Shangming, that you ask me this is also fitting; wait for me to explain it to you. If my explanation does not work, I will burn a stick of incense and make three prostrations to you; if my explanation works, I will accept your burning incense and prostrations. Nor will I quote to you the words and phrases of Old Man Śākyamuni and former worthies. I will speak directly from within your own house, as the saying goes, "borrowing the grandmother's shawl to bow to the grandmother for the New Year."' Then I asked: 'Have you ever read Zhuangzi?' He said: 'How could I not have read it?' Miaoxi said: 'Zhuangzi says: "When speech is sufficient, speaking all day exhausts the Dao; when speech is insufficient, speaking all day exhausts things. At the utmost of the Dao and things, speech and silence are not sufficient to convey them. Neither speech nor silence: this is where the principle reaches its utmost." I have never looked at Guo Xiang's commentary or the various commentators' notes, but relying merely on my own improvisation I will demolish your silence. Have you not seen: one day Master Kong made a great fuss, saying: "Shen! My way is bound together by a single thread." Zengzi said: "Yes." You petty scholars, as soon as you hear that word "yes," immediately start slandering here, saying: "This one 'yes' has the same root as Heaven and Earth, is of one body with the myriad things, elevates the ruler above Yao and Shun, establishes family and state, serves as general abroad and minister at home, down to when he uncovered his hands and feet—it never leaves this one 'yes.'" Fortunately, it has nothing to do with it! Little do they know that this principle is simply Zengzi's speech being sufficient and Confucius's speech being sufficient. His disciples did not understand, and instead asked: "What does it mean?" Zengzi, seeing that they could not comprehend it, answered their question on a secondary level, considering that the Master's way could not be left without words, and so said: "The Master's way is simply loyalty and reciprocity." The main point is that where the Dao and things reach their utmost, it is not in words, nor is it in silence. Words cannot convey it, and silence cannot convey it. What you have said does not even accord with the meaning of Zhuangzi, let alone Old Man Śākyamuni and Master Bodhidharma! Do you want to understand Zhuangzi's "neither speech nor silence: this is where the principle reaches its utmost"? It is simply Master Yunmen raising his fan and saying: "The fan jumps up to the Thirty-three Heavens and bumps the nostril of Lord Indra; the carp of the Eastern Sea is struck with a blow, and rain pours down like a torrent." If you can understand this talk of Yunmen's, then it is identical to what Zhuangzi said, what Zengzi said, and what Confucius said.' He thereupon fell silent. Miaoxi said: 'Though you do not speak, your mind is not yet subdued. However, it is clear that the ancients certainly did not sit in silence. Just now you brought up Śākyamuni shutting his room and Vimalakīrti's silence. Just look at how an old-time lecturer named Master Zhao expressed that wordless realm to people, saying: "Śākyamuni shut his room in Magadha; Vimalakīrti sealed his mouth in Vaiśālī. Subhūti proclaimed wordlessness to reveal the Dao; Śakra and Brahmā ceased listening and rained flowers. In all these cases, principle guided the spirit, so the mouth was silent on account of it. How could it be said there was no eloquence? It was that eloquence could not express it." This is principle and spirit suddenly colliding with each other, unawares arriving at the place that cannot be spoken; although not speaking, its sound is like thunder.' Therefore it says: 'How could it be said there was no eloquence? It is that eloquence could not express it.' Here, worldly cleverness and eloquence cannot be used in the slightest. Arriving at such a stage is truly the place to abandon life and cast off the body. This kind of realm must be personally confirmed and personally awakened to by the person themselves. Therefore the Avataṃsaka Sūtra says: 'The palaces of the Tathāgata have no bounds; those who are naturally awakened dwell within them.' This is the great liberation Dharma gate of all the sages from of old: limitless and boundless, without gain and without loss, without silence and without speech, without going and without coming—so it is in every dust mote, every realm, every thought, and every phenomenon. It is only because the faculties and dispositions of sentient beings are narrow and inferior, unable to reach the realm of the sages of the Three Teachings, that they divide this from that. Little do they know that the realm is so vast and grand, yet they sit silently in the ghosts' cave beneath the Black Mountain; hence the ancient sages scolded it as the deep pit of liberation, a fearsome place. Viewing it with the spiritual powers of the Dharma eye, it is just like sitting on mountains of knives and trees of swords, or amidst cauldrons of boiling water and burning coals. Even lecturers do not get stuck in silence, much less guests at the gate of the ancestral masters! Yet they say: 'The moment you open your mouth, you fall into the present moment.' Fortunately, it has nothing to do with it! Shangming unconsciously bowed. Miaoxi said: 'Although you bow, there is still more to the matter.' In the evening he entered the room, and I asked him: 'How old are you this year?' He said: 'Sixty-four.' I asked again: 'Before sixty-four years ago, where did you come from?' He could not open his mouth, and I drove him out, striking him across the spine with a bamboo comb. The next day he came to the room again and said: 'Before sixty-four years ago, I did not yet exist; why does the Venerable ask where I came from?' Miaoxi said: 'Before sixty-four years ago, you could not originally have been in the Zheng family of Fuzhou. Right now, this distinct, solitary clarity that listens to the Dharma and speaks the Dharma—before you were born, where after all was it?' He said: 'I do not know.' Miaoxi said: 'If you do not know, then birth is a great matter. This present life is provisionally limited to a hundred years; after a hundred years, even if you want to fly beyond the three-thousand-great-thousandfold world, you must still enter the coffin with it. At that time, the four great elements and five aggregates will disperse all at once: having eyes, you will not see things; having ears, you will not hear sounds; having a fleshy lump of a heart, discrimination will not work; having a body, fire burning and knives cutting will cause no sensation of pain. Arriving here, where will this distinct, solitary clarity go?' He said: 'I do not know either.' Miaoxi said: 'Since you do not know, then death is a great matter. Therefore it is said, "impermanence is swift, birth and death are a great matter"—this is just the principle. Here, cleverness is of no use, and memorization is of no use. I further ask you: all your life you have produced so many particles and grammatical flourishes—on the thirtieth day of the twelfth month, which phrase will you use to resist birth and death? You must know clearly the place of coming in birth and going in death before you can succeed. If you do not know, you are merely a fool.' Only then was his mind subdued. From then on, I rescued him from sitting in the wordless and speechless place, and he was willing to apply effort here. Today in this assembly, listening to the Dharma together, you must know that everyone possesses this one great matter: unchanging and unmoving from ancient times to the present. You must neither let your mind go blank nor fix your intention; just keep bringing it to awareness at all times. When delusive thoughts arise, you must also not use the mind to stop them: stopping movement to return to stillness, the stopping causes even greater movement. Right at the point of movement and stillness, examine the huatou—even if Old Man Śākyamuni and Master Bodhidharma were to appear, it is just this. A monk asked Zhaozhou: 'Does a dog have buddha-nature or not?' Zhaozhou said: 'No [Wu].' You petty scholars mostly love to force interpretations, saying: 'This is not the "no" of existence and non-existence, but the "no" of true emptiness, not belonging to worldly voidness.' Speaking like this, can you resist birth and death or not? Since it cannot resist birth and death, it is not yet right. Since it is not yet right, you must bring it to awareness when walking, bring it to awareness when sitting; times of joy, anger, sorrow, and delight, times of responding to affairs and socializing—all are times for bringing it to awareness. Bringing it to awareness over and over until it is tasteless, your mind will be just like having a ball of hot iron placed upon it: that time is precisely the good place, do not let go of it! Suddenly the flower of the mind blossoms with light, illuminating the lands of the ten directions; then you will be able, upon the tip of a single hair, to manifest the lands of the Jewel King, and sitting within a fine dust mote, turn the great wheel of the Dharma. When all of you hear such talk, you often say in your minds: 'The old fellow Miaoxi wags his lips and flaps his tongue, speaking plausibly enough, but who knows what is in his belly?' You must know that what Miaoxi can speak is what he can practice; there are no two different things. Therefore, the thirteenth ancestral master of the Western Heaven, the Venerable Kapilamala, wishing to seek a disciple to succeed to the ancestral seat, considered that there must be an eminent person dwelling in the deep mountains and remote valleys, and went in search of him. Thus know that not only do disciples seek masters urgently, masters also seek disciples urgently. Entering the mountains, indeed he saw a man come out to welcome him, saying: 'The deep mountains are lonely and secluded, the dwelling place of dragons and serpents; O most honored Great Worthy, why have you deigned to tread your holy feet here?' The ancestor said: 'I am not the most honored one; I have come to visit a worthy.' The man thought silently: 'Has this master attained the determinate nature and clarified the eye of the Way? Is he a great sage succeeding to the True Vehicle?' The ancestor said: 'Though you spoke in your mind, I already knew it with my intent. Just prepare to leave home; why worry that I am not a sage?' Having heard this, he repented and apologized, whereupon he took refuge with the ancestor and left home—this was the fourteenth ancestral master, Nāgārjuna. Nowadays students of the Way mostly do not doubt themselves, but doubt others instead; therefore it is said: 'Beneath great doubt there must be great awakening.' But tell me, what is awakened to?" After a long pause, he said: "I dare not hold you in contempt; you will all become buddhas." He descended from the seat.