大慧普覺禪師語錄 5.20

5.20

Secretariat Drafter Zhu requested him to ascend the seat. A monk asked: "The Buddhas of the three periods have spoken; how is it with the Venerable?" The Master said: "In the land of Magadha, this decree was personally executed." The monk said: "Nevertheless, the matter right now is not so." The Master said: "The sword is long gone, yet you only now notch the boat." The monk said: "I also know the Venerable cuts off the tongues of all people under heaven." The Master said: "Indeed it is not so." The monk said: "In the middle of the road, in broad daylight under a blue sky, with open eyes one falls into another's trap." He then bowed and asked: "Śākya and Maitreya are still his servants; I wonder, who is he?" The Master said: "You are a rustic fellow." The monk said: "Take care not to give him a name and title." The Master said: "What name could a rustic fellow have?" The monk said: "Where are your previous words?" The Master said: "In the end, who do you say he is?" The monk said: "Without an errand boy at home, one does not make a gentleman." The Master said: "You inevitably turn along in the footsteps of others." He asked: "What is the precise great meaning of the Buddhadharma?" The Master said: "This old monk has no precise great meaning, nor any 'what'." The monk said: "Since there is none, where did the Venerable obtain this news?" The Master said: "Yuwang also does not have this news." He then said: "Just this news: the Buddhas of the three periods could not fully express it, and the six generations of patriarchs could not transmit it. Since it could neither be fully expressed nor transmitted, then Śākya and Maitreya are also empty names. Since Śākya and Maitreya are empty names, what can be called a servant, and what can be called a master? What can be called life, and what can be called death? What can be called antiquity, and what can be called the present? Since there is neither life nor death, neither antiquity nor the present, completely bare without any presumption, starkly clean without any nest or burrow—if it is like this, then throughout the worlds of the ten directions there is neither inside nor outside; it is a purely wondrous Buddha-land, an unsurpassed Buddha-land, an unequaled Buddha-land, an inconceivable Buddha-land, an immeasurable Buddha-land, an inexpressible Buddha-land. Since there is such a Buddha-land, just as Commissioner of the Palace Gate, the Secretariat Drafter, today requests Miaoxi to bring forth this great matter of cause and condition to dedicate merit to his late mother, the Grand Lady Yu, tell me: in which Buddha-land is she?" After a long pause, he said: "In every dust mote a Buddha-field; on every leaf a Śākya."