大慧普覺禪師語錄 30.3

30.3

I have received your letter stating your intention to thoroughly investigate this matter of the great cause. Having made up this mind, first of all, do not be anxious: if you are anxious, you will instead be delayed. Nor can you be slack: if you are slack, you will become indolent and remiss. Just like the method of tuning a lute, the tight and the slack must hit the mean, and only then will it form a melody. Simply in daily life, where you respond to conditions, observe and watch at all times: this of mine that can decide right and wrong, crooked and straight for people—by whose gracious power is it supported? In the end, from what place does it flow forth? As you observe and watch back and forth, the road of what has ordinarily been unfamiliar will naturally become familiar. When the unfamiliar becomes familiar, then what was familiar will conversely become unfamiliar. What is the familiar? The five aggregates, the six sense-entrances, the twelve sense-fields, the eighteen elements, the twenty-five realms of existence, the avidya-karmic consciousness, the deliberating and calculating mind and consciousness, flashing day and night like mirages, without a moment's rest—these are it. This entanglement causes people to wander through birth and death, and causes people to do bad things. Once this entanglement becomes unfamiliar, then bodhi, nirvāṇa, suchness, and buddha-nature will instantly manifest before you. When they manifest, there is also no measure of manifestation. Therefore, when the ancients attained realization, they were able to say: 'When responding to the eyes, it is like a thousand suns: the myriad forms cannot escape their shadows and forms; when responding to the ears, it is like a deep valley: no sound, whether great or small, is insufficient.' Such things do not depend on seeking elsewhere; they do not borrow others' power; naturally, where one responds to conditions, they are vital and lively. Before having attained this, for now take this mind that calculates worldly defilements and turn it to the place where deliberation cannot reach. Try to deliberate and see: what is the place where deliberation cannot reach? A monk asked Zhaozhou: 'Does even a dog have buddha-nature or not?' Zhou said: 'No (Wu).' Just this single word—however many tricks you may have, please try to arrange it, please try to calculate it! Deliberating, calculating, and arranging—there is no place where it can be set down. When you only feel stifled in your belly and troubled in your mind, that is precisely the good moment: the eighth consciousness is about to cease operating. When you feel like this, do not let it go; just bring it to awareness on this word 'Wu.' Bringing it to awareness back and forth, what was unfamiliar will naturally become familiar, and what was familiar will naturally become unfamiliar. In recent years, there has been a sort of person in the monasteries who sings heterodox views and acts as a master, telling students: 'Just keep watch over quietude.' They do not know what kind of thing the watcher is, or what kind of person the quiet one is. Yet they say that quietude is the foundation, and they do not believe in awakening, claiming that awakening is branches and leaves. They even cite the monk asking Yangshan: 'Do people nowadays still rely on awakening or not?' Yangshan said: 'It is not that there is no awakening, but what can be done about falling into the secondary?' In front of a fool one must not talk of dreams, for they then take it as an actual reality, saying that awakening is falling into the secondary. They completely fail to understand that Guishan himself had words to alert and awaken students that were exceedingly earnest, saying: 'Thoroughly investigate the ultimate principle, taking awakening as the rule.' Where should these words be placed? It cannot be that Guishan misled later generations and wanted to make them fall into the secondary. Pavilion Commissioner Cao is also mindful of this matter. Fearing that he might be led astray by heterodox teachers, I recently wrote to him in the same manner as this letter, setting it down with anxious care. This gentleman's intelligence and insight far surpass ordinary people; he will definitely not go so far as to mistakenly take words of expedient means as actual realities. It is only that I have not yet met him face to face, and so was privately over-worried. I hear that you, venerable lay scholar, are also his companion in the Way. Following my brush, entanglements have unconsciously arisen. When you meet in leisure, try asking him for the letter to take a look; only then will you know that Miaoxi's expectations of people do not lie before the eyes. Our spirit and sense of duty correspond to each other, and it is not a relationship based on influence or profit. Having written one sheet, when the sheet was finished I added another, with no time to attend to outward formalities. This letter is also like that. In the previous letter, I entrusted you as an insider, and so said: 'You must by no means say, "I am already old and worn out, so what is the point?" If you act like that, then when a good thing is right before you, you will definitely let it pass by.' Although it seemed casual when writing, nonetheless the stimulus and response aligned with each other, and it unconsciously was written on paper. I am grateful that you trust Miaoxi so deeply, and so right where you manage affairs and respond to conditions in daily life, you broadly expand this dharma-gate, so as to repay the sacred sovereign's intention of seeking worthy men to bring peace to the realm; you truly do not fail your understanding. May you endure all things, from beginning to end just carrying on as you do today, unifying the Buddha's Dharma and worldly affairs into a single whole, tilling while fighting. After a long time it will become thoroughly seasoned, and in one stroke you will attain both. Would that not be wrapping a hundred thousand strings of cash around one's waist and riding a crane up to Yangzhou?