大慧普覺禪師語錄 22.5

22.5

If you are determined to thoroughly investigate this matter, you must fling away to another world all your former cleverness in speaking of principles, what you have memorized in words and language, and what you have calculated and measured within the mind, intent, and consciousness—you must not let a single hair's tip remain placed within your chest. Once it is swept away completely clean, only then, toward the place that thoughts and deliberations do not reach, try to take a step forward and see. If you can take this step, you will be just like the Youth Sudhana in Samantabhadra's pore-lands, where with one step he traversed worlds as numerous as the dust motes of ineffably ineffable buddha-lands. Walking thus, even to the exhaustion of future kalpas, he still could not know the limits of the sequence of land-oceans, the storehouses of land-oceans, the distinctions of land-oceans, the universal entrance into land-oceans, the formation of land-oceans, the destruction of land-oceans, and the adornment of land-oceans within a single pore; nor could he know the limits of the sequence of buddha-oceans, the storehouses of buddha-oceans, the distinctions of buddha-oceans, the universal entrance into buddha-oceans, the appearance of buddha-oceans, and the cessation of buddha-oceans; nor could he know the limits of the sequence of bodhisattva-assembly oceans, the storehouses of bodhisattva-assembly oceans, the distinctions of bodhisattva-assembly oceans, the universal entrance into bodhisattva-assembly oceans, the gathering of bodhisattva-assembly oceans, and the dispersing of bodhisattva-assembly oceans. Knowing the roots of sentient beings entering the realms of ghosts, the wisdom to teach and tame sentient beings, the profound self-mastery in which bodhisattvas abide, the stages and paths that bodhisattvas enter—the limits of all such oceans—one truly knows that being free of thoughts and free of contrivance possesses such merit. Although this step is said to be difficult to take, if you have planted the seed of wholesome roots in the past, just look toward the place where you have firm faith; looking and looking, inwardly having nowhere to abide and outwardly having no conditioning objects, unconsciously and unwittingly you drop the cloth bag. At such a time, only then will you know that what Layman Pang said—'No-thought is the Qingliang Monastery, / The emptiness of the aggregates is the true Mount Wutai. / Facing objects, the mind is free of defilement; / Confronting circumstances, the mind is dead ashes. / The wondrous principle manifests within it, / The udumbara blooms in empty space. / Seeking nothing is the true dharma eye; / Leaving behind characteristics, one is the Tathāgata. / If one can study like this, / Unmoving, one transcends the three disasters'—are true words, real words, not deceiving and not false. Nevertheless, do not, upon seeing such talk, go to the place of non-contrivance and inaction, close your eyebrows and shut your eyes, adopting a dead posture, calling it 'silent and constantly illuminating,' holding tight to the monkey's leash for fear that it will jump around. Ancient worthies called this an 'outsider falling into empty annihilation' and a 'corpse whose soul has not dispersed.' If you truly wish to cut off the birth and death of the mind, wash away the defilements of the mind, and fell the dense forest of the mind, you must take a stick and beat this monkey to death before you can succeed. If you persistently hold fast to the end of the leash and tame the mind, I say this person's grasping lacks proper measure, and is truly pitiable. Viewing it with the correct eye, they are all heavenly demons, outsiders, and mountain goblins and specters, not of our household. This matter requires someone forged of solid steel and cast of pig iron to shoulder it; if you have the intention to shoulder it, you miss it once again. Out of necessity, seeing that you have lost the path, the ancients merely acted as guides pointing out the road for you, but there is no Chan path or Buddhadharma that can be transmitted or conferred. As soon as one says there is transmission and reception, that is an incorrect teaching. Why so? Do you not see that the Vajracchedikā Sūtra says: 'If someone says that the Tathāgata has expounded any Dharma, that is slandering the Buddha, and this person does not understand the meaning of what I have expounded'? It also says: 'Even the Dharma should be relinquished, how much more so what is non-Dharma?' Truly speaking, to speak of suchness and buddha-nature, to speak of bodhi and nirvāṇa, to speak of principle and phenomena, to speak of the incorrect and the correct—all of this is non-Dharma. How could one further speak of having something profound and wondrous that can be transmitted and conferred? Do you not see that a former worthy had a saying: 'Speaking of studying the Way is already words of expedient guidance; when did it ever teach you to set up models and draw likenesses, running and seeking outside on purpose?' Therefore it is said: 'Attempting to use the mind and intention to study the profound school / Is just like heading west but turning toward the east.' Linji said: 'If you only cease your mind of running and seeking from thought to thought, you will not be different from old Śākyamuni. The mind of seventh-stage bodhisattvas seeking the Buddha's wisdom has not yet ceased, and is called the affliction of dharma-dust. Since you have a determined resolve, there will certainly be a time when you obtain an entryway.' And what is the time when one obtains an entryway? It is the moment when with an abrupt outburst the breath of consciousness is extinguished. The Buddha said: 'The principle is suddenly awakened to, / And upon awakening, all is simultaneously dissolved; / Phenomena are not suddenly removed, / But are exhausted according to sequence.' If you wish to recognize these principles, it is just like Sudhana hearing Maitreya's snap of the fingers, whereupon the doors of the pavilion opened; Sudhana's mind was filled with joy, and having entered, they closed again; or Xiangyan hearing the sound of striking the bamboo and suddenly awakening, whereupon he was able to say: 'With a single strike, what was known is forgotten, / No longer relying on cultivation and cure. / Moving the countenance to propagate the ancient road, / Not falling into silent mechanisms'—and things of this kind. One's own place of awakening, one's own place of peace and joy, one's own place of gaining strength are unknown to others and cannot be brought out and shown to people; except for those who have already awakened, already attained peace and joy, and already gained strength, upon a single meeting they silently tally with each other. If the feeling of doubt is not yet broken, merely look at an ancient's huatou for entering the Way; shift all the mind that generates deluded thoughts day after day onto the huatou, and then nothing else will function. A monk asked Zhaozhou, 'Does even a dog have buddha-nature or not?' Zhaozhou said, 'No (wu).' This single word is the knife that severs the road of birth and death. When deluded thoughts arise, merely raise the word wu; raising it again and again, when news is abruptly cut off, that is the place where you return home and sit securely. Other than this there is nothing extraordinary, and the previously mentioned step that is difficult to take will unwittingly and abruptly be crossed.