大慧普覺禪師語錄 22.15

22.15

Those literati who have never turned their attention to the Buddha Vehicle often take the Buddha Vehicle to be a teaching of mere emptiness and stillness. Clinging attachment to their leather bag [of a body], upon hearing someone speak of emptiness and speak of stillness, they give rise to fear and dread. They simply do not realize that this very mind of fear and dread is the root of birth and death. The Buddha himself has said: 'Without destroying worldly marks, one speaks of the true mark.' He also said: 'These dharmas abide in their dharma positions; worldly marks abide eternally.' The *Baozang lun* says: 'Still and quiet, vast and expansive: above there is the ruler, below there are the ministers; father and son are affectionate in their dwelling; the noble and the lowly differ in their ranks.' Observed from this, the teachings of our Buddha that secretly assist in exalting the imperial sacred transformation are indeed many! How could he ever have spoken merely of emptiness and stillness? For instance, the worldly saying that Lord Lao spoke of the art of longevity is precisely no different from rigidly asserting that the Buddha spoke [only] of the method of emptiness and stillness. Laozi's book originally never spoke of retaining the physical form to remain in the world, but also took purity and non-action as the natural resting place. It is merely that those who do not study the Buddha and Laozi slander them with minds of like and dislike; one must not fail to examine this. I humbly say: 'Although the sages of the Three Teachings established their teachings differently, their Dao returns to a single alignment.' This is an unchanging principle for ten thousand ages. Yet even though it is so, do not speak of it before people without wisdom, lest it break your head and split your forehead.