大慧普覺禪師語錄 23.20

23.20

For those who fear birth and death, the root of doubt has not been completely uprooted; wandering for hundreds of kalpas and thousands of lifetimes, receiving retribution in accord with their karma, bobbing up and down without rest. If you can vigorously muster your spirit and uproot it cleanly at once, you will be able to see the buddha-mind without leaving the sentient-being mind. If you have past vow-power and meet a genuine good spiritual friend who guides and instructs you with skillful means, what difficulty could there be? Have you not seen what an ancient worthy said: 'Rivers and lakes have no mind to obstruct people; buddhas and patriarchs have no intention to deceive people.' It is merely because people of the world cannot cross over that one cannot say rivers and lakes do not obstruct people. Although the spoken teachings of the buddhas and patriarchs do not deceive people, it is merely because students of this Way mistakenly take skillful means, seeking the mysterious and wondrous, seeking gain and loss within a single word or phrase, and thereby cannot penetrate through, that one cannot say the buddhas and patriarchs do not deceive people. It is like a blind person who cannot see the light of the sun and moon: it is the fault of the blind person, not the blame of the sun and moon. This is the fourth model of studying this Way free from the characteristic of words, free from the characteristic of discrimination, and free from the characteristic of language. May Layman Miaoming reflect on this.