大慧普覺禪師語錄 19.30

19.30

If you wish to study this Way, you must comprehend it directly beneath your own feet. The moment you are involved with even a fine hair of views and understanding, you miss the news beneath your feet. Once the news beneath your feet is penetrated, all kinds of views and understanding are nothing other than the affairs beneath your feet. Therefore the Patriarch said: "Right when speaking of views and understanding, views and understanding are just the mind; present mind is just views and understanding, views and understanding are just the present." If right now, without exceeding a single thought, you abruptly forget views and understanding beneath your feet, then you will walk hand in hand with the Patriarchs. If you have not yet been able to do so, by all means avoid fixing upon views and understanding. When scholar-officials study the Way, those of sharp faculties miss it, and those of dull faculties find it difficult to enter. Finding it difficult to enter, they naturally give rise to retreat and discouragement; missing it, they give rise to slander without doubt. If you want to hit the mark, just shift that which missed it to the place that is difficult to enter, and shift that which is difficult to enter to the place that missed it; naturally, all will be tranquil and at peace, and you will not make interpretations of "difficult to enter" or "missing it." Having attained this, it is fitting right here to lay down your whole body. When laying it down, you must also not make an understanding of laying it down. As an ancient worthy said: "Footloose and idle, always like an utter fool, yet in another's house there will naturally be a person of penetration to appreciate him." Moreover, Qingliang said: "Give free rein to its going and staying, quietly mirror and perceive its source and flow; to speak of realization cannot be demonstrated to others, to discuss principle cannot be understood without realization." Yet people nowadays, as soon as they hear such words, assume there really is such a thing, and thereupon say, "I have realized it, I have awakened to it, but I cannot bring it out to show to people." They exclusively speak lofty Chan, crisscrossing in every direction, talking nonsense and uttering falsehoods, deceiving gods and terrifying ghosts, supposing that the affair under the Patriarchs' gate is merely like this. Little do they know that genuine realization and genuine awakening—only people of genuine realization and genuine awakening, without relying on words and expressions, naturally tally in silence with one another. In tallying with one another, they also do not intentionally attempt to harmonize; it is like water entering water, or gold trading for gold, pointing to one and understanding three, weighing the occasion by grains and drachms. Having reached this stage, only then can one speak of transcending the characteristic of speech, transcending the characteristic of words, and transcending the characteristic of mental conditioning. It is not forced; the Dharma is just so. In the monasteries of recent times, false teachings have sprung up on every side, blinding the eyes of sentient beings beyond count. If one does not use the gong'ans of the ancients to bring up, awaken, and prompt them, it is just like a blind person letting go of the staff in his hand—unable to take even a single step. They take the causal conditions of the ancient worthies' entry into the Way and divide them into categories, saying: "These few cases are the causal conditions of the eye of the Way; these few cases are the causal conditions of penetrating sound and form; these few cases are the causal conditions of forgetting emotional attachments." From the beginning, one by one according to order, they calculate, estimate, formulate replies, and deliberate. Even if there are those who recognize this sickness, they assume that the Buddhadharma and the Way of Chan do not lie in words and language, and so set everything aside, gulping down the ready-made gruel and rice, and sitting clumped together in the ghost cave beneath the Black Mountain, calling it "silent yet constantly shining," calling it "like a person who has died the great death," calling it "the affair before father and mother were born," calling it "the news before the empty kalpa," and calling it "the news on that side of Powerful Sound." Sitting on and on until their buttocks grow calluses, they do not dare make a move, calling it "the effort gradually maturing." Then they take many idle and rambling words, deliberate on them from the beginning as doctrinal principles, and transmit them through instruction, calling it "the lineage doctrine." Inside their chest it remains pitch-black as before; originally intending to eradicate self and other, self and other become even loftier; originally intending to extinguish ignorance, ignorance becomes even greater. Little do they know that in this matter, only genuine realization and genuine awakening can be the ultimate. The moment there is a word or half-phrase made into an interpretation of the extraordinary, the profound and wondrous, or the secret, something that can be transmitted and conferred, then it is not the true Dharma. The true Dharma has no transmission and no conferral; only I realize and you realize, eye meeting eye, transmitting mind with mind, causing the wisdom-life of the buddhas and patriarchs to continue without interruption; only afterward does one extend what is left over in oneself to serve as a model for beings. Therefore Bodhidharma said: "I originally came to this land / To transmit the Dharma and save deluded beings. / A single flower opens into five petals; / The fruit forms naturally." That is it. That which is called transmitting the Dharma is the mind-dharma; the mind-dharma has no form or dimension. What is transmitted is what was mentioned earlier: "I realize and you realize." If both parties have not realized it and seek realization outside the mind, then there are lineage doctrines, profound, wondrous, and extraordinary things that can be transmitted and conferred, whereupon there arises, "I understand, you do not understand," generating thoughts of disdain and increasing views of self; the Tathāgata calls them pitiable. In Miaoxi's Chan, there is no difference between difficult to practice and easy to practice; it only requires the practitioner of Chan, before the bowels move, to cut off the road of birth and death, directly having no doubt about the buddhas, no doubt about the patriarchs, no doubt about birth, and no doubt about death. The difference between difficult to practice and easy to practice lies in the person, not in the affair of Chan. Often clever and alert fellows mostly seek quick results, wanting something they can speak with their mouths and something they can rely on before them. Little do they know that for one who has attained this matter, it is like a live lion wheeling around, in the person's daily life during the twelve periods of the day. It is like quicksilver dropped on the ground: the large drops are large and round, the small drops are small and round, needing no arrangement, requiring no contrivance, naturally lively and dynamic, constantly revealed manifest before you. Right at such a time, one first tallies with what the Overnight Enlightened One said: "Not seeing a single phenomenon is the Tathāgata; only then can one be called the Perceiver of Sovereignty." If you have not yet been able to be like this, for the time being set this cleverness and speaking of principles to one side, and right where there is nothing to grasp and nothing of flavor, try to grope and chew on it. Groping back and forth, chewing back and forth, suddenly right in the tasteless place you bite your tongue, and in the ungraspable place you lose your nostrils; then you will know what Old Man Zhaozhou said: "Before leaving home I was used by bodhi; after leaving home I could use bodhi. Sometimes I pick up a blade of grass and use it as the sixteen-foot golden body; sometimes I take the sixteen-foot golden body and use it as a blade of grass. Establishing also rests with me; sweeping away also rests with me. Speaking of principles also rests with me; not speaking of principles also rests with me. I am the King of Dharma, sovereign in phenomena; if I speak, there are so many; if I do not speak, there are not so many." Having attained such sovereignty, wherever you go, how could you not be at ease? The Sanskrit term prajñā is translated here as wisdom; there has never been one who illuminated prajñā yet harbored greed, anger, and delusion; there has never been one who illuminated prajñā yet poisoned and harmed sentient beings. Those who do such things run counter to prajñā; how could they be said to possess wisdom? Miaoxi usually says to those within the gate: "The very moment you feel that in your daily life, in responding to conditions, you are saving effort, that is just where you are gaining strength; where you gain strength, infinite effort is saved; where effort is saved, infinite strength is gained." Often, having heard this said many times, it becomes like a person from Sizhou seeing the Great Sage. Little do they know that when Miaoxi speaks like this, it is precisely his lifelong walk of practice. Fearing that there are those who lack sufficient faith, he cannot help but repeatedly remind, awaken, and drag through the mud and water, simply because having once been a wanderer, he has a special sympathy for travelers.