大慧普覺禪師語錄 29.25

29.25

You frequently send greetings to Miaoxi; I imagine it is simply that you want to tame the water ox and squeeze this monkey to death. This matter does not lie in spending a long time in monasteries or extensively consulting knowledgeable teachers; it is valued only in directly taking it up under a single word or single phrase without winding around. Speaking according to reality, there is not room for a hair; saying "directly" out of necessity is already winding, and saying "taking it up" is already missing it. How much more so dragging in branches and vines, citing sūtras and teachings, and speaking of principle and phenomena—do you wish to reach the end? An ancient worthy said: "If there is a fine hair, it is dust." If the water ox is not tamed and the monkey is not dead, even if you could expound principles as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, it would not concern me in the slightest. Yet whether one can speak of it or cannot speak of it is also not an external matter. Have you not seen that the venerable elder of Jiangxi had a saying: "Being able to speak of it is also your mind; not being able to speak of it is also your mind." If you resolutely wish to shoulder it directly, you must see the buddhas and patriarchs like mortal enemies; only then will there be a slight degree of accord. Doing the work like this, as days and months deepen, without having to stir your mind to seek enlightenment, the water ox will naturally be tamed and the monkey will naturally die. Remember this! Remember this! Just direct yourself toward the place where your everyday mind, consciousness, and intellection cannot assemble, cannot grasp, and cannot discard, and look into a huatou. A monk asked Yunmen: "What is the Buddha?" Yunmen said: "A dried shit-stick." When looking into it, there is no need to use your everyday cleverness and quick-wittedness to deliberate and calculate. If you stir your mind to deliberate, a hundred and eight thousand [miles] is not yet far. Is not-deliberating, not-calculating, and not-stirring the mind it, then? Bah! What else could it be? Let us set this matter aside for now.