大慧普覺禪師語錄 20.4

20.4

When a Chan practitioner reads the sūtras and teachings and the ancients' circumstances of entering the Way, he should just empty his mind, without needing to seek the mysterious and wondrous or seek awakening in words, names, phrases, and meanings. If you generate this mind, it will obstruct your own right knowledge and view, and for eternal kalpas you will have no entry point. Panshan said: 'It is like throwing a sword into empty space: do not discuss whether it reaches or does not reach; it cannot be neglected.' Vimalakīrti said: 'The Dharma transcends the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind; if you wish to penetrate this Dharma, you must first clear away the gates of the six sense faculties, leaving no slight flaw.' What is a flaw? Being turned around by form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and dharmas and unable to stay far from them, and seeking knowledge, views, and intellectual understanding in the sūtras, teachings, and words of the ancient worthies—this is it. If in the sūtras, teachings, and the ancients' circumstances of entering the Way you can avoid giving rise to a second thought and directly know where to return, then regarding your own realm and other realms, there is nothing that will not be as you wish and nothing that will not be free and unhindered. When Deshan saw a monk enter the gate, he immediately struck him; when Linji saw a monk enter the gate, he immediately shouted at him. The venerable elders of the various quarters call this 'bringing it out directly to the face and handing it over straightforwardly'; Miaoxi calls it 'dragging through mud and dripping with water of the first degree.' Even if you take it upon your whole body under a single blow and a single shout, you are already no true fellow, having had a ladle of foul water poured over your head by him. How much more so if beneath a single blow and a single shout you seek something extraordinary and look for wondrous understanding—that is being clumsy among the clumsy.