大慧普覺禪師語錄 26.7

26.7

I have learned that lately you have been mindful of this great matter of the causal condition, courageous, vigorous, pure, and unmixed, at which I rejoice beyond measure. In the midst of blazing activity throughout the twelve double-hours, have you definitely attained resonance, or not? Between the two sides of waking and sleeping, have you attained oneness, or not? If not, you must never solely sink into emptiness and turn toward stillness—the ancients called this making a ghost's living under the black mountain, with no time of breakthrough to liberation to the end of the future. Yesterday I received your letter of instruction, and privately worried that you must have already become attached to the samādhi of quiet excellence; and upon inquiring of the Grand Academician, I found it was indeed as I expected. In general, gentlemen who have more than enough experience dealing with worldly matters, after being stuck in defiling worldly toil for a long time, suddenly receive someone's instruction to apply their efforts in quietude and silence; when they suddenly attain an unburdened mind, they immediately recognize it and take it as ultimate peace and joy. Little do they know that it is like pressing grass with a stone: though for a short time they feel that signs of activity have ceased, alas, the roots and trunk are still there, so how could there ever be a time of penetratingly realizing quiescent extinction? To have true quiescent extinction appear before you, you must suddenly make a leap right out from the midst of blazing arising and ceasing; without moving a single hair, you instantly stir the great river into ghee and transform the great earth into gold, having the freedom to let go or snatch away, kill or bring to life at the critical juncture, with nothing inadmissible in benefiting others or benefiting oneself. The ancient sages called this the dhāraṇī gate of inexhaustible treasuries, the gate of sport in supernatural powers of inexhaustible treasuries, and the gate of liberation as-one-wishes of inexhaustible treasuries—how is this not the capability of a true great hero? Yet it is not brought about by external force; it is entirely the ordinary portion of our own mind. I hope that you will quickly muster your spirit, resolve upon this, and thoroughly and greatly awaken, so that your mind is bright and clear like hundreds of thousands of suns and moons, and the worlds of the ten directions are clearly understood in a single thought without the slightest hair-tip of divergent thoughts; only then will you attain resonance with the ultimate. If you can truly be like this, not only will you gain strength on the road of birth and death, but in the future, when you once again hold the balance of state and set your sovereign above Yao and Shun, it will be as easy as pointing to the palm of your hand.