大慧普覺禪師語錄 28.17

28.17

Your letter states: 'The multilayered dharmadhātu of the Avataṃsaka is definitely not empty words. Since they are not empty words, there must be a point of entrustment, and there must be a point of self-affirmation. Reading to this point, I sighed in admiration for a long time.' When scholar-officials face life, death, misfortune, and fortune, eight or nine out of ten reveal their utter helplessness in what they have studied throughout their lives. Examining their conduct, they are inferior to a simple man in a three-family village whose mind cannot be agitated by wealth, rank, poverty, or lowliness. Comparing them in this way, there are many cases where the wise are inferior to the foolish, and the noble are inferior to the base. Why is this? Because when birth, death, misfortune, and fortune appear before them, that moment allows for no pretense. What you, Minister Participator, have studied throughout your life is already manifest in your actions; when facing misfortune and fortune, like refined gold entering fire, you appear all the more bright and dazzling. Moreover, you decisively know that the multilayered dharmadhātu of the Avataṃsaka is definitely not empty words; thus, you surely do not conceive it as another thing. The rest of the ups and downs, whether adverse or favorable, proper or perverse, are likewise not other things. I hope that you will constantly maintain this contemplation. Miaoxi is also within it. On another day, following one another to the shores of solitude, we shall form an affinity of incense and lamp for future lives, bringing the multilayered dharmadhātu to completion and making its reality actual—how could this be a small benefit? One must further add a footnote: this very tangle of words right now must strictly not be understood as an allegory pointing to things. A smile.