虛堂和尚語錄 10.85

10.85

Just as a stone contains jade, without keen discernment how could one recognize its authenticity? The Way is within one's own person; if one seeks it externally, it is difficult to accord with its subtlety. If discernment is not keen, it remains hidden and minute; if seeking is not agile, it remains obscure and vague. To clarify the source of realizing the Way is not something that can be sought in a single morning or evening. Therefore, our old teacher of India, not holding firmly to his resolution, abandoned the dignity and honor of ten thousand chariots and suffered six years of hunger and cold; on the eighth night of the twelfth month, suddenly beholding the bright star, without leaving the grass seat he entered an inconceivable realm and expounded an entire canon of entangling vines, snaring heaven and earth, sun and moon, encompassing yin and yang and the transformative workings of nature, so that sentient and insentient beings could not escape his shadow. The three ranks of sages and ten stages of holy beings all inclined their hearts; the non-Buddhists and celestial demons all folded their hands. It can repay rulers and parents, enrich customs, suppress levity and dispel falsity, providing many hidden benefits and secret assistances. At the very end, however, he said that from the Deer Park at first to the Hirañyavatī River at last, in between these two he had never spoken a single word. How utterly leaky and careless! From then on, the gates and keys were not strictly kept, and we see that across exotic regions and foreign lands, in the Divine Continent of the Red District, the golden writings of the ocean treasury are everywhere present. How could it merely be breaking open a single dust mote to bring forth this sutra scroll? Dharma Master Suk of Goryeo is a kin of the Indian old teacher; having deeply cultivated past seeds, he sailed across the sea, bringing himself from afar, vowing to complete ten sets of the canon. Traversing wind and frost, his determination grew ever more earnest, seeking out spiritual friends everywhere and inquiring into what he had not yet heard. If before unrolling the sutra cord you can enter this Dharma-gate of the letter 'A', then the five thousand-odd fascicles will all be mere spelling guides. Tell me: what character does it spell? Huo! Suddenly your eyelids burst open—do not forget this old monk. Written in the eighth month of autumn in the guihai year of the Jingding reign of the Song by the Old Man of Xutang at the Western Hermitage of Xuedou in Siming.