大慧普覺禪師語錄 25.8

25.8

Old Pang said: 'I only wish to empty all that is, and never solidify what is not.' If you merely comprehend these two lines, the business of a lifetime of study and practice is finished. Nowadays there is a kind of shaved-headed outsider who, lacking clear eyes themselves, merely teach people to cease and rest like dead barbarians. If one ceases and rests like this, even until the appearance of a thousand buddhas in the world one will not be able to cease and rest, but will only make one's mind more bewildered and stifled. They also teach people to maintain mindful awareness in accord with conditions and to forget feelings in silent illumination; illuminating back and forth, maintaining back and forth, they only become increasingly bewildered and stifled without end—completely losing the Patriarch's skillful means, wrongly instructing people, and causing them to live in vain and die in delusions throughout. Furthermore, they teach people not to concern themselves with any matter, but merely to rest like this; having rested until emotional thoughts do not arise, when they reach such a time, it is not dark unawareness, but directly bright, alert, clear, and distinct. This sort is all the more poisonous, blinding people's eyes—no small matter! Yunmen usually saw these fellows and did not treat them as human beings. Since their own eyes are not clear, they merely take words from books and teach people according to the model; how can this be taught? If one believes in this sort, one will never be able to investigate it through eternal kalpas. Yunmen usually does not forbid people from sitting in meditation and making effort in a quiet place; this is applying medicine according to the illness, without actually having any such instruction for people. Have you not seen Venerable Huangbo say: 'In this Chan lineage of mine, since its transmission from above, we have never taught people to seek knowledge and seek understanding; we only speak of studying the Way'—this is already words of expedient guidance. Yet the Way cannot be studied either; if emotion harbors study of the Way, it turns into delusion regarding the Way. The Way has no location; it is called the Great Vehicle mind. This mind is not within, without, or in between, and truly has no location. First of all, you must not form intellectual understanding; it is merely said that the place of your present emotional calculations is the Way. When emotional calculations are exhausted, the mind has no location; this Way is naturally genuine and originally without a name. Only because worldly people do not recognize it and are deluded amidst emotions, the buddhas emerged to expose this matter; fearing you would not understand, they provisionally established the name 'Way'—you must not cling to the name and generate understanding. The blind fellows spoken of earlier who wrongly instruct people are all those who mistake fish eyes for bright pearls, clinging to names and generating understanding: teaching people to maintain mindful awareness—this is clinging to the perception right before one's eyes and generating understanding; teaching people to stubbornly cease and rest—this is clinging to forgotten concerns and empty stillness and generating understanding; resting until there is no perception and no cognition, resembling earth, wood, tile, and stone, and at such a time saying it is not dark unawareness—this is again mistakenly taking skillful words for untying bonds and generating understanding; teaching people to watch over themselves in accord with conditions and not let evil awareness appear before them—this is again clinging to the emotional consciousness of a dry skull and generating understanding; teaching people to merely be free and unrestrained, letting it be at ease without caring about arising minds or stirring thoughts, [claiming that] the arising and ceasing of thoughts originally have no real entity and that if one grasps them as real, the mind of birth and death arises—this is again clinging to the body of naturalness as the ultimate teaching and generating understanding. The various illnesses above have nothing to do with the person studying the Way; they are all due to blind ancestral teachers giving wrong instructions. Since you dwell in purity yourself and harbor a sincere, firm mind directed toward the Way, regardless of whether your practice is pure and unified or not, simply do not continue piling layer upon layer on the ancients' words and phrases like stacking up a pagoda, vainly applying effort without end. Just keep your mind in one place, and there is nothing you will not attain; when the time and conditions arrive, you will naturally bump into it and knock against it, bursting forth in awakening. 'When not a single thought arises, is there still any fault or not?' The answer was: 'Mount Sumeru.' 'How is it when not bringing a single thing?' The answer was: 'Put it down.' If you cannot break through doubt here, simply investigate right here, and there is no need to sprout extra branches. If you can trust Yunmen, just investigate like this; there is no other Buddha Dharma to show people. If you cannot trust fully, feel free to cross north and south of the river asking Old Wang, resolving one doubt only to breed another.