大慧普覺禪師語錄 27.7

27.7

You have done the work of quiet superiority for accumulated years. I wonder, at the place where you open your eyes and respond to things, have you attained leisure and ease of mind? If you have not yet attained leisure and ease, then your work of quiet superiority has not gained power. If after so long it still has not gained power, you should seek a shortcut where it gains power, only then not letting down so much effort of the past. Doing the work of quiet superiority in the past was merely to ward off what is noisy; when right in the midst of noise, one is instead clamorously disturbed by the noisy within one's own square inch, it is just as if one had never done the work of quiet superiority in the past. This principle is merely too close—it does not go beyond your own eyes. Opening your eyes, it immediately pierces you; at the place where you close your eyes, it is also not lacking. Opening your mouth, you immediately speak of it; at the place where you close your mouth, it is also self-evident. Intending to give rise to mind and stir thoughts to take it up, you have already missed it by a hundred and eight thousand [leagues]. Truly there is nowhere for you to use your mind; this is what saves the most effort. Nowadays, most students of this Way want to seek with effort; seeking it, they lose it all the more; facing it, they turn their backs all the more. How much worse is it to fall into the conceptual path of gain and loss, saying that in noisy places there are many losses and in quiet places there are few losses? You have dwelt in the place of quiet superiority for more than twenty years; try bringing forth a bit of what has gained power for me to see! If you take what is rigid and immovable as gaining power in quietude, why is it lost when facing noise? Now, if you want to save effort and have quiet and noise be as one, simply penetrate Zhaozhou's character 'Wu'. Once you suddenly penetrate it, only then will you know that quiet and noise do not hinder each other; you will also not need to exert effort to prop things up, nor will you make an understanding of having no propping up.