大慧普覺禪師語錄 27.19

27.19

I respectfully learn that your fifth son has passed away from illness. The affection between father and son is the outflow of the habit energy of affection through thousands of births and hundreds of kalpas; when confronting such a circumstance, I imagine there is nowhere one can find relief. In the world of the five turbidities, all the various things are illusory, without a single reality. Please constantly maintain this contemplation whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down; then as days lengthen and months deepen, it will gradually wear away. However, right when you are distressed, examine closely and investigate to the end: where does it arise from? If you cannot reach its source of arising, where then did that which is presently distressed come from? Right when you are distressed, does it exist or not exist, is it empty or is it real? Investigating back and forth, the mind has nowhere to go; if you need to deliberate, just deliberate; if you need to weep, just weep. Weeping and weeping, deliberating and deliberating, when all the habit energy of affection in the storehouse consciousness is shaken out and exhausted, naturally it will be like water returning to water, restoring to you that which originally has no distress, no deliberation, no sorrow, and no joy. When one can enter into the worldly, leaving the world is without remainder; worldly phenomena are Buddhist phenomena, and Buddhist phenomena are worldly phenomena. The innate nature of father and son is just one; if a son dies and the father does not grieve or deliberate, or if a father dies and the son does not grieve or deliberate, would that be acceptable? If you forcibly repress it, not daring to weep when weeping and not daring to deliberate when deliberating, this is merely wishing to oppose heavenly principle and destroy innate nature, like raising one's voice to stop an echo or pouring oil to extinguish a fire. Right at the moment of distress, it is not an external matter at all; furthermore, you must not regard it as external. Yongjia said: 'The true nature of ignorance is itself buddha-nature; the empty body of illusory transformation is itself the dharmakāya.' These are words that are true, actual, not deceptive, not false. Having seen in this way, if you want to deliberate or want to be distressed, they cannot be found either. One who makes this contemplation is called having right contemplation; if one makes other contemplations, it is called wrong contemplation. When wrong and right are not yet distinguished, it is precisely the right time to exert effort. This is Miaoxi's definitive meaning; do not speak of it before those without wisdom.