大慧普覺禪師語錄 20.17

20.17

One day Layman Pang was sitting alone in his thatched hut and suddenly said: "Difficult! Difficult! Ten pecks of sesame seeds spread on the tree!" Pang's wife, hearing this, chimed in: "Easy! Easy! On the tips of the hundred grasses, the Patriarch's meaning!" His daughter Lingzhao said: "Neither difficult nor easy: when hungry, eat rice; when tired, sleep." Miaoxi says: "These three people walk together but do not take the same step; they attain together but do not lose together." If one calculates and surmises with the mind, intellect, and consciousness, not only will one fail to see the resting place of these three people, but throughout the twelve periods of the day one will also be blind to one's own original ground and scenery, not seeing one's original face, unavoidably dragged along by difficult, easy, neither difficult, nor easy, unable to attain ease. If you wish to attain ease, please take what these three people said and look at it as a single phrase. Miaoxi has already dragged mud and water, adding footnotes for him. An ancient worthy said: "Just generate a consenting mind, and you will certainly not be deceived." One only fears that the person lacks sufficient faith, and in daily life, responding to conditions, is carried away by external objects, unable to apply effort single-mindedly, thereby creating interruptions. When there are interruptions, the mind is unavoidably perturbed; but right when it is perturbed, it is actually an excellent time. The Buddha said: "Dwelling at all times without giving rise to deluded thoughts; toward all deluded minds, not putting them to rest; abiding in the realm of delusive thoughts, not adding understanding; and regarding non-understanding, not distinguishing the real." This is just this principle. This principle cannot be explained to others; only one who has verified awakening knows where it lands as soon as it is raised.