大慧普覺禪師語錄 7.2

7.2

At the beginning of the summer retreat, he addressed the assembly: "'Being and non-being are like wisteria leaning on a tree'—that fellow Meng the Eighth just goes on like this. When the spiritual mechanism is not reached and words do not match, the eyes can hold hundreds of thousands of myriads of Mount Sumerus, and the ears can hold boundless and limitless fragrant water oceans. When the mechanism matches the words and the words hit the mechanism, not a speck of sand can be placed in the eyes, nor a drop of water in the ears. There are fellows who, hearing this spoken, immediately say: 'Seeing the moon, stop looking at the finger; returning home, cease asking about the road.' They do not realize that one must cast a ten-thousand-li hook, rein in the thousand-li black steed, spread a sky-spanning net, and catch the surge-breaching kun-whale. If they are frogs, earthworms, lame turtles, or blind terrapins, it is in vain for them to take the hook or enter the net. Only such a person can know such an affair. Therefore it is said: 'To kill someone, one naturally has the sword that kills; to bring someone to life, one naturally has the sword that gives life.' If there is the sword that kills but not the sword that gives life, none of the dead can be revived; if there is the sword that gives life but not the sword that kills, none of the living can be slain. If one can slay the living and revive the dead, one can scrape turtle hair from the back of an iron ox and sever rabbit horns at the waist of a barren woman, without making extraordinary calculations or forming abstruse interpretations. Why would one need ninety days of confinement to feet and three months of protecting living beings, scrupulously guarding the wax man and binding oneself without a rope? One must realize that throughout the ten directions and across the entire dharmadhātu, there is not even a needle's tip that is not the dwelling place of each and every person. Going on like this, there is still more to it. I venture to ask everyone: just as a person who is neither dead nor alive comes forward, how would you kill him? How would you bring him to life? If you cannot kill him or bring him to life, the Buddhadharma has no efficacious power. Even if you can kill him and bring him to life, you are still not a master hand, and in the province of a patch-robed monk it has no relevance whatsoever. Tell me, what strong point does a patch-robed monk have?" After a long pause, he said: "Although I have a pair of impoverished hands, I have never bowed low to ordinary men." He gave a shout.