大慧普覺禪師語錄 25.10

25.10

Reading your letter closely, I know that throughout the four postures there is no interruption in your practice, that you are not diverted by official business, that in the rushing torrent you constantly bring yourself to severe awakening, by no means negligent, and that your aspiration for the Way grows firmer the longer it lasts—this deeply gratifies my humble heart. Yet worldly dust and toil blaze like fire; when will there ever be an end to it? While in the very midst of clamour, you must not forget the affair upon the bamboo chair and rush mat. Maintaining mindfulness in quiet and secluded spots throughout your ordinary life is meant precisely for use in the midst of clamour; if it lacks efficacy in the midst of clamour, it is just as though you had never applied effort in quietude. I note your lament that past conditions were mixed and tangled so that you now suffer this retribution; this alone I dare not accept. If you stir up this thought, it will obstruct the Way. An ancient worthy said: 'Recognizing one's nature following the flow, there is neither joy nor sorrow.' Vimalakīrti said: 'For instance, the lotus does not grow on high plateaus or dry ground, but grows only in low, damp mud.' The Old Barbarian showed: 'True Suchness does not maintain its own nature; according with conditions, it brings all affairs and dharmas to completion.' He also said: 'According with conditions, responding to receptivity, there is nowhere it does not reach, while constantly abiding on this bodhi-seat.' How could they be deceiving people? If you take the quiet place as right and the clamorous place as wrong, you are destroying worldly characteristics to seek the true characteristic, departing from arising and ceasing to seek cessation. When you are fond of quiet and averse to clamour, that is precisely the time to apply effort: suddenly, right in the clamour, you overturn the news from the time of quiet, and its power will surpass that on the bamboo chair and rush mat by thousands of myriads of times. Only listen to me, and I certainly will not mislead you. Furthermore, I note that you take Layman Pang's two lines as your motto for walking, standing, sitting, and lying down; nothing could be better. But if you give rise to aversion while right in the midst of clamour, that is simply disturbing your own mind. If, whenever a thought stirs, you only use Layman Pang's two lines to raise and inspect, it will be a dose of cooling powder in the sweltering heat. You possess decisive faith and are a person of great wisdom; only after long applying effort in quietude do I dare speak to you in this way. For others it would not do; if one spoke like this before people of vast karmic consciousness and overweening pride, it would only add to their burden of bad karma. The various sicknesses of the Chan gate have already been detailed in my previous letter; I do not know whether you have examined them closely or not.