大慧普覺禪師語錄 26.13

26.13

You informed me: "I wish to pay heed to this matter of the great cause, but my capacity is extremely dull." If it is truly thus, I must offer congratulations to you. The reason most scholar-officials nowadays cannot, in this matter, make hundreds of settlements and thousands of conclusions and directly penetrate through to liberation, is simply that their faculties are too sharp and their views are too many; seeing an ancestral master merely open his mouth and move his tongue, they already understand it in a moment. For this reason, they are conversely not as good as those of dull faculties, who lack so many evil cognitions and perceptions. When such a one suddenly collides [with the truth] and is triggered upon a single pivot or circumstance, under a single word or phrase, then even if Master Bodhidharma came forth and exhausted a hundred kinds of spiritual penetrations, he could do nothing to him—simply because there is no [fabrication of] principle that can obstruct him. Those of sharp faculties are instead obstructed by their sharpness, unable to attain the snap of breaking or the pop of bursting open. Even though they learn through intelligence and conceptual understanding, in their own fundamental task they can exert no strength. Therefore the Venerable Nanquan said: "Lately there are too many Chan masters; one cannot find a single foolish and dull person." The Venerable Zhangjing said: "The ultimate truth transcends words, yet people of the time do not understand; they forcefully practice other matters, taking them as meritorious abilities, unaware that their own nature is fundamentally not an objective realm of dust. It is a subtle and wondrous gate of great liberation; all its discernment and awareness are unstained and unhindered. Such radiance has never ceased or been abandoned; from past kalpas until now, it has indeed not changed. Like the sun disk shining far and near, although it reaches all colors, it does not blend with anything; the luminous candle of wondrous brightness does not depend on forging. Because they do not understand, they grasp at worldly appearances; this is merely like rubbing one's eyes and vainly giving rise to flowers in the sky, wearing oneself out in vain and fruitlessly passing through kalpas. If you can reflect backward, there is no second person; all actions and deeds do not detract from the true mark." You say yourself that your faculties are dull; try reflecting backward like this and see: does that which can know dullness still have dullness or not? If you do not turn the light back to reflect inward, but merely cling to your dull faculties and further produce afflictions, that is to heap illusion upon illusion, to add more flowers in the sky upon flowers in the sky. Only listen to me: that which can know that one's faculties are dull is decidedly not dull. Although you must not cling to this dullness, neither can you abandon this dullness to investigate. Grasping and rejecting, sharpness and dullness, lie with the person, not with the mind. This mind is one substance, not two, with the buddhas of the three periods; if there were two, then the Dharma would not be impartial. Receiving teachings and transmitting mind is merely false and illusory; seeking the true and searching for the real only leads to further discrepancy. As long as you know the mind of one substance and not two, it decidedly does not lie between sharpness and dullness, grasping and rejecting. Then you should see the moon and forget the finger, directly cutting it in two with a single blow. If you further hesitate, thinking ahead and calculating behind, then that is to produce real understanding upon an empty fist and pointing finger, to falsely conjure monsters within the dharmas of faculties and realms, and vainly to imprison and cling to yourself within the aggregates and realms without ever having an end. In recent years there is a kind of false master who preaches silent illumination Chan, teaching people to pay no attention to anything during the twelve periods of the day, to "rest away and pause away," not allowing them to make a sound lest they fall into the present. Time and again, scholar-officials driven by their intelligence and sharp faculties mostly dislike noisy places. When suddenly instructed by such false masters to sit quietly, they find it saves effort and immediately take it to be right; they no longer seek wondrous awakening, but merely take silence as the ultimate standard. Spared not the karma of speech, I have exerted all my strength to remedy this harm. Now that you somewhat know the error of this, I hope you will only investigate in the place where your doubt cannot be broken, never letting go of it whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down. A monk asked Zhaozhou: "Does a dog have buddha-nature or not?" Zhou said: "No (Wu)." This single word is a knife that breaks the doubting mind of birth and death. The handle of this knife is solely in one's own hand; you cannot have another strike for you—you must strike yourself before it works. Only if you can cast away your life will you be willing to strike yourself. If you cannot cast away your life, then just press on in the place where the doubt cannot be broken; when you suddenly become willing to cast away your life, it is finished in a single stroke. At that time you will finally believe that the time of stillness is the time of noise, the time of noise is the time of stillness, the time of speech is the time of silence, and the time of silence is the time of speech. You will have no need to ask others, and naturally you will not be taken in by the nonsense and babble of false masters. This is my most earnest prayer. Formerly, Zhu Shiying once wrote a letter to the Venerable Zhenjing of Yun'an, asking: "The Buddha-dharma is supremely wondrous. In daily life, how should one use the mind, and how should one investigate it? I hope for your compassionate instruction." Zhenjing said: "The Buddha-dharma is supremely wondrous and without duality, but before one reaches the wondrous, there are relative strengths and shortcomings. If one reaches the wondrous, then the person who has awakened to the mind knows in accordance with reality that his own mind is ultimately and originally an accomplished buddha, in accordance with reality at ease, in accordance with reality peaceful and happy, in accordance with reality liberated, in accordance with reality pure. And in daily life, he uses only his own mind; the transformations of his own mind he takes up and uses, without asking whether it is right or wrong. Conjecturing and deliberating in the mind is already wrong. When one does not conjecture in the mind, each and every thing is natural and true, each and every thing is clear and wondrous, each and every thing is like a lotus flower unattached to water; the purity of the mind transcends them. Therefore, because of being deluded about one's own mind, one becomes a sentient being; because of being awakened to one's own mind, one becomes a buddha. Yet sentient beings are precisely buddhas, and buddhas are precisely sentient beings; it is due to delusion and awakening that there are this and that." Nowadays, practitioners of the Way mostly do not believe in their own minds, do not awaken to their own minds, do not attain the clear and wondrous functioning and enjoyment of their own minds, and do not attain the peace, joy, and liberation of their own minds. Outside the mind they falsely imagine there to be Chan and the Way, falsely establish the extraordinary, and falsely give rise to grasping and rejecting. Even if they cultivate, they fall into the realm of the non-Buddhists' and two vehicles' dhyāna-quiescence and annihilationist views. This is what is meant by "cultivating while fearing falling into the pit of annihilationism and eternalism." Those with annihilationist views extinguish the originally wondrous and bright nature of their own mind, exclusively attaching to emptiness outside the mind and stagnating in dhyāna-quiescence; those with eternalist views do not awaken to the emptiness of all dharmas, but cling to the conditioned dharmas of the world, taking them to be ultimate. Those false masters teach scholar-officials to collect the mind and sit quietly, to pay no attention to anything, to "rest away and pause away." Is this not using the mind to rest the mind, using the mind to pause the mind, using the mind to direct the mind? If one cultivates like this, how could one not fall into the realm of the non-Buddhists' and two vehicles' dhyāna-quiescence and annihilationist views? How could one make apparent the clear and wondrous nature of one's own mind, and enjoy ultimate peace and joy? As for the marvel of its pure liberation and transformations in accordance with reality, one must see it and awaken to it for oneself; then naturally one will not be turned around by the words and phrases of the ancients, but will be able to turn around the words and phrases of the ancients. It is like placing a pure maṇi jewel into muddy water: even after hundreds of thousands of years it cannot be defiled, because its fundamental substance is inherently pure. This mind is also like this: just when deluded, it is confounded by the dusts of worldly toil, but this substance of mind has fundamentally never been confounded; this is what is called being "like a lotus flower unattached to water." If you suddenly awaken to this mind as originally an accomplished buddha, ultimately at ease, and peaceful and happy in accordance with reality, its various wondrous functions also do not come from the outside, because it is fundamentally complete in itself. The yellow-faced old fellow said: "There is no fixed dharma named anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, nor is there any fixed dharma that the Tathāgata can speak." If you fix upon the fundamental substance as truly possessing such a thing, then that too is wrong. Having no alternative, because of delusion, awakening, grasping, and rejecting, various principles are spoken; these are merely skillful means spoken for those who have not reached the wondrous. In fact, in the fundamental substance there are no various things. I ask you to merely apply your mind like this: throughout the twelve two-hour periods of the day, you must not cling to birth-and-death and the Buddha-way as existent, nor must you dismiss birth-and-death and the Buddha-way into nonexistence. Merely observe: "Does a dog have buddha-nature or not?" Zhaozhou said: "No (Wu)." You must on no account deliberate under the root of intellect; you must not make a living on words and language; you must not take it up where the mouth opens; and you must not understand it in the spark struck from a stone or the flash of lightning. Does a dog have buddha-nature or not? No. Merely investigate like this. Nor must you use your mind to wait for awakening or wait for resting and pausing. If you use your mind to wait for awakening and wait for resting and pausing, then you will have even less connection to it.