密菴和尚語錄 1.321

1.321

Since the Patriarchs, they have never lightly pointed out Chan, the Way, or the Buddha Dharma to students and called it a shortcut to studying the Way. They only required that the person cast off the present moment, and directly shoulder it before their parents gave birth to them, at the juncture when chaos was yet undivided—like a dragon gaining water, like a tiger leaning against a mountain: in all places clear and pure, in all places taking life and giving life with complete freedom, in all places naturally raising winds and stirring the grass, not clinging to the conditioned, not sitting in the unconditioned. It is like cutting a skein of silk: with one cut, everything is cut; like dyeing a skein of silk: with one dyeing, everything is dyed. Penetrating from top to bottom, the entire substance is a great gate of liberation; Buddha Dharma and worldly phenomena are fused into one sheet. Where could there be even a hairline of external matter that could be an obstruction? When people who study the Way exert their strength in study yet do not awaken, the illness lies in muddling over the ancient masters' spoken words; the illness lies in sitting attached to wondrous realms; the illness lies in an empty void without forms; the illness lies in harbouring Chan, the Way, and Buddha Dharma in one's chest; the illness lies in casting off delusion to take up awakening; the illness lies in failing at the outset to meet a good friend and being led into an entangling clump of vines. These several illnesses are not only possessed by novices and latecomers; even among the great elders of the past who thoroughly awakened to their fundamental mind, thoroughly saw their fundamental nature, and before whom the scenery of their own fundamental ground manifested—if the Great Dharma was not clear to them, they also had this illness. Look at Venerable Xinghua saying to the assembly: "I hear shouting in the front corridor, and shouting at the rear latrine. Do not shout blindly or shout wildly, gentlemen! Even if you could shout Xinghua up into the thirty-three heavens, and he fell down without a breath of air left, just wait until Xinghua revives and he will say to you, 'Not yet.' Why? Because I have never yet scattered pearls for you inside the purple silk tent." Xinghua directly shouldered it, riding the thief's horse to chase the thief; he simply had not yet exterminated him. If in the journey ahead he bumps into one who understands his tone and clearly brings it up, that person will certainly round out these words for him.