大慧普覺禪師語錄 20.27

20.27

Men of cleverness and sharp intelligence often slip past this matter right beneath their feet. Because the clever and sharp-witted have an open flow of intellectual reasoning, as soon as they hear someone bring up matters of this realm, they immediately comprehend and survey them with their mind, intellect, and consciousness. Yet when it comes to the real, substantial root, all is pitch black, and they do not know where to turn. Then they take what they usually learned with mind, intellect, and consciousness as verification; wanting to speak it with their mouths and having pondered and deliberated it in their minds, they forcefully arrange it, wishing to make it distinct and clear. Little do they realize that the household ghosts are working havoc, and that it definitely does not come from outside. Thus Yongjia said: 'Damaging the wealth of Dharma and extinguishing merit is all due to this mind, intellect, and consciousness.' Looked at in this way, the hindrance to the Path caused by mind, intellect, and consciousness is worse than venomous snakes and fierce tigers. Why is this? Venomous snakes and fierce tigers can still be avoided; but men of cleverness and sharp intelligence make their den of mind, intellect, and consciousness, and in walking, standing, sitting, and lying down they never cease for an instant to interact with them. As days grow long and months deep, unknowingly and imperceptibly, they form a single mass with them. It is not that they intend to form a single mass, but because from beginningless time they have grown practiced in walking this path; even if they momentarily see through it, they still cannot distance themselves from it. Hence it is said: 'Venomous snakes and fierce tigers can still be avoided, but from mind, intellect, and consciousness you truly have nowhere to flee.' Unless one has innate spiritual bones, so that in the midst of everyday actual practice one can hold fast, be the master, see through it, cut it directly in two with a single blade, and work on it straight from beneath one's feet, one need not set one's mind on waiting for awakening, nor is there any need to calculate when it will be attained. Simply treat what the ancient sages rebuked as if avoiding venomous snakes and fierce tigers, or passing through a land of poison potions, not letting a single drop enter your mouth; and then, with what the sages of the Three Teachings praised, in tea and in food, in joy and in anger, when interacting with friends, when attending upon elders, when gathering with wife and children, when walking, standing, sitting, lying down, encountering circumstances and meeting conditions, whether good or bad, when sitting alone in a dark room—let there not be a moment's interruption. If you do the work like this and the business of the Path is not accomplished, then the sages of the Three Teachings are all liars. Scholars usually amuse themselves within the Nine Classics and Seventeen Histories, with rises and falls, order and disorder, adversity and prosperity, rectitude and wickedness; there is not a single thing they do not know, not a single thing they do not understand. Past and present, they know all and understand all; if there were one thing they did not know, one thing they did not understand, people would call them shallow and lacking insight. Regarding the affairs of others' households, they know all, see all, and recognize all; when they put brush to paper to compose essays, it is like water pouring from a jug, citing antiquity and invoking the present—they certainly have an exquisite mind and eloquent mouth; their minds can ponder it, and their mouths can speak it distinctly. As for others' conduct, others' adversity and prosperity, others' wickedness and rectitude, they know the bottom of each and every one, and can point them out one by one without the slightest leak. But when you calmly ask them: 'Before you were born into the Zhang, Huang, Li, or Deng families as a son, where did you settle your body and establish your life?' Right now you act cleverly and talk of principles, fighting over self and other, giving rein to ignorance, using karmic consciousness to inspect others; you are not one who can distinguish wicked from upright, good from bad—after a hundred years, where will you go? Not knowing whence you came is the greatness of birth; not knowing whither you go is the greatness of death. That impermanence is swift and the matter of birth and death is great—these are just such truths. The Confucians also say: 'Birth and death are also great.' A stick strikes the stone man's head, crack-crack, talking of real things! On the thirtieth day of the twelfth month, when the murderous ghost of impermanence arrives, it will not accept your glib tongue. 'Not shifting anger, not repeating faults'—Confucius praised Yan Hui alone, meaning that the sage has no anger, and having no anger, he is not swayed by physical temperament; it means that the sage has no faults, and having no faults, right mindfulness stands alone and emancipated; when right mindfulness stands alone and emancipated, it becomes a single whole; becoming a single whole, it is not twofold. As soon as thoughts of wickedness and error infringe upon rectitude, they break into two pieces; breaking into two pieces, how could their faults stop at two? The meaning of 'not shifting anger, not repeating faults' is just this; one need not discuss it as something mysterious or exceptional. When scholars study the Way of the ancient kings, it is only to rectify the disposition of the mind; once the disposition of the mind is rectified, wickedness and error naturally have no concern with it; since wickedness and error do not concern it, then in the midst of responding to conditions in everyday life, all is naturally clear at every turn and manifest in every thing. The disposition of the mind is the root; literary skill and scholarship are the branches. Scholars of recent times mostly abandon the root and pursue the branches, picking phrases and plucking lines, learning ornate words and clever speech to outdo each other, regarding the classic arts of the sages as useless words—is this not lamentable? This is what Mencius meant by not measuring the base and wishing to level the top, so that a piece of wood an inch square can be made taller than a high pavilion. Mengbi is precisely in the prime of his years; you have had an early flash of insight, can turn around the mind that engages in worldly toil and unwholesome karma, and wish to study the Dharma of release from birth and death. If you had not planted roots of virtue in past lives, you could not have such firm faith, hold fast, act as the master, and constantly keep birth and death in mind—truly a lotus in fire. Since the matter of birth and death is in your thoughts, the disposition of your mind is already rectified; once the disposition of the mind is rectified, then in responding to conditions in daily life you need not exert effort to banish things; since you need not banish things, there is no wickedness or error; with no wickedness or error, right mindfulness stands alone and emancipated; when right mindfulness stands alone and emancipated, principle transforms according to events; when principle transforms according to events, events are harmonized with principle; when events are harmonized with principle, it saves effort; and as soon as you feel it saves effort, that is the place where you gain strength in studying this Path. Where you gain strength, you save boundless effort; where you save effort, you gain boundless strength. When you reach such a time, mind, intellect, and consciousness need not be suppressed, but naturally settle peacefully. Even though this is so, you must strictly avoid falling into the place of no words and no speech; if this ailment is not eliminated, it is no different from when mind, intellect, and consciousness are not yet at peace. Therefore the Yellow-Faced Old Man said: 'Do not grasp at the speech of sentient beings, nor at all conditioned, illusory matters; although one does not rely on the path of verbal speech, neither does one cling to the absence of speech.' As soon as you abide in the place of wordlessness, you are deluded and confused by the heterodox Chan of silent illumination. What was said earlier—that venomous snakes and fierce tigers can still be avoided, but mind, intellect, and consciousness are hard to guard against—is just this principle. When according with conditions in daily life, set things aside, and when you can attain a quiet place, then be quiet; when stray thoughts arise, simply bring up the huatou. For the huatou is like a great mass of fire, not allowing mosquitoes, gnats, mole crickets, or ants to alight on it. Bringing it up over and over, as the days and months deepen, suddenly the mind has nowhere to go, and without your realizing it, there is a sudden burst. At just such a time, you do not need to ask anyone about birth, you do not need to ask anyone about death, you do not need to ask anyone about that which is unborn and undying, you do not need to ask anyone about the one who speaks like this, and you do not need to ask anyone about the one who receives such speech. Just as when a person eats food until full and satisfied, thoughts of desiring food naturally do not arise. Thousands of explanations, myriad explanations, crooked explanations, straight explanations—all are only because Luo Mengbi's doubt has not been broken. On some future day, should you suddenly slip and kick your own nostrils, where will you place all the sharp, scolding words Miaoxi has chattered on and on? Miaoxi himself says: 'Falling due to the ground, rising due to the ground; rising and falling depend on the person, and ultimately have nothing to do with this piece of ground.' Having written to this point, a scroll of paper has run out; so let us cut through the trailing vines.