虛堂和尚語錄 4.42

4.42

The ancestral masters of antiquity were straightforward when guiding people: whenever there was a question, they simply broke attachments right where the question arose, with no substantial doctrine at first. Later on, [their words] set up targets that invited arrows, taking shape in verbal expressions, which led to general discourses. General discourses first originated with Venerable Zhenjing; since the Three Buddhas, all have given general discourses, which were nothing other than angry scoldings, rebukes, spurnings, proddings, instructions, and encouragements to make patch-robed monks of great resolve strive vigorously in their work. The general discourses of masters in recent times occasionally given are still largely in literary styles; they do not show how the ancients straightforwardly guided people, but greatly resemble essays and policy discourses in the examination halls. When one examines where they come from, they are merely words on medicine labels, unable to cure people's sicknesses, merely causing the later degenerates to copy, collect, and secretly treasure them in confusion to serve as their fundamental investigation. Little do they know that in our King's treasury there is no such sword. Deshan said: 'There are neither buddhas nor patriarchs; Bodhidharma was originally an old, stinking bearded barbarian; old Śākyamuni is a dry piece of shit; the twelve-division teachings are ghost-and-spirit registers; the four fruits and three worthies are ghosts guarding old tombs—all of them cannot even save themselves.' Though this was an expedient for a time, it was already painting a snake and adding legs. Linji said: 'In former days, this mountain monk paid attention to the Vinaya, and for decades I opened and searched the sūtras and treatises; only later did I realize they were worldly remedies and outward displays. Thereupon I threw them all away at once, gave rise to the intention to investigate Chan, and met good spiritual friends; only then did my eye of the Way become clear and distinguish the corrupt from the upright. It was not that I understood this at birth from my mother.' These too are words with which the ancients did not deceive people. Practitioners today do not attain the marvel; their sickness lies in lacking sufficient self-confidence; their sickness lies in gain and loss, right and wrong; their sickness lies in self-view and stubborn clinging; their sickness lies in limited ruts; their sickness lies in not being free from dynamic circumstances; their sickness lies in taking a little to be sufficient; their sickness lies in [attachment to] a single teacher or single friend; their sickness lies in collateral lineages and separate factions; their sickness lies in constraints of status and appearance; their sickness lies in having grown arrogant so that all their life they cannot be humble. These several kinds of sicknesses are the catalysts that obstruct the Way; everyone has them. What is essential is for each person to take a step back and wipe them completely clean, making it so there is no entrance through which to operate, and proceed along an ancient road grand and open—without constraint or check, without hindrance or obstruction; picking it up and using it immediately, touching it and killing immediately; releasing and taking away according to the moment, without the slightest particle of stagnation—like rolling a round boulder from atop a thousand-fathom cliff. When auspicious light appears in days to come, setting a model for later generations, it truly will not be a disgrace. If there is a single thought of seeking the Buddhadharma, one will instead be covered by the two words 'Buddhadharma', like oil entering flour, seeking escape in vain. From my youth, this mountain monk was inclined to investigate and study; I sat for one or two years with scarcely any entry, only feeling that my mind and eye were both clear. Later, wandering among the rivers and lakes, although I drew near to others, when they saw that you were not a creature of this kind, who would be willing to refine you? One could only lament to one's own shadow in the wind, leaving it to going and staying. Later at Jinshan, I happened to meet my late master Yun'an, who invited me to Zhashang and allowed me to enter his room. Yet I was simply not allowed to utter a turning phrase; as soon as I opened my mouth he would say: 'Take it slowly, do not be rash.' In the room he constantly brought forward the case of 'the ancient sail is not yet hoisted'; as soon as I opened my mouth, he would scold me. One day in the attendants' quarters I thought about it: What is so difficult to understand about 'the ancient sail is not yet hoisted'? In truth, it is merely the matter before a single bubble has arisen, the matter before a single thought has stirred. That monk was also clever, making the ancestral master turn around and enter his rut. Seeing clearly where he came from, Yantou gave him a thrust right across his mouth, which is called 'receiving a cow from someone and returning a horse to him'; why would he not let someone utter a turning phrase? Thereupon, shouldering this load of understanding, I went to the abbot's quarters to present it. Before my voice had ceased, the late master said: 'Why don't you shut your dog mouth, go to a quiet place and intimately embody it? Every day you just come here arguing over the rights and wrongs of the ancients; when will there ever be an end?' When I returned to the quarters, I felt anxious and restless; suddenly I understood the talk of 'the ancient sail is not yet hoisted', the talk of 'the pure practitioner does not enter nirvāṇa', and the other nearby and shallow phrases gradually became clear to me. The next day, hearing the drum beaten for entering the room, the late master saw that my demeanor was somewhat different; putting aside the talk of 'the ancient sail is not yet hoisted', he asked me about 'Nanquan cuts the cat'. This mountain monk immediately offered a turning phrase: 'The great earth cannot bear it.' The late master lowered his head and smiled. Even though it was like this, after half a year my mind was as noisy as before; when pressed by others, I still could not make a move. Later, I looked at the talk of Shushan's memorial tower; for three or four years, one day without mind, I suddenly understood the occasion of the ancient buddha of Daling emitting light; only then did I attain ease, no longer deceived by others. Taking up the phrases I had examined before and giving them another look, they were vastly different from what I had seen previously; I truly knew that this matter definitively does not lie in words. When on pilgrimage I reached Hanshang, I spent the summer at Yuquan in Jingmen. Because of reading Juefan's *Biographies of the Saṃgha's Jewels*, I saw the case of Senior Monk Ju visiting Langye. Langye asked: 'Where have you recently left?' Ju said: 'Zhejiang.' Ye said: 'Did you come by boat or by land?' Ju said: 'By boat.' Ye said: 'Where is the boat?' Ju said: 'Under foot.' Ye said: 'Without walking the journey, what is the single phrase?' Ju struck him once with his sitting cloth and said: 'Fabricating elders are as plentiful as hemp and millet.' And he walked right out. Langye went in person to the travelers' quarters and asked: 'Could you be Senior Monk Ju? Just now it was improper for me to offend you.' Ju immediately shouted and said: 'In what year did the elder reach Fenyang? When I was in Zhejiang, I had already heard your name, but your understanding is only like this; how did your name spread throughout the universe?' Langye said: 'This one's fault,' and made prostrations. Such was their meeting, so clearly shown; yet further down in Juefan's biography, he added a few sentences, saying that Langye once brought this up to Ciming, and Ming laughed and said: 'Ju's view can barely save himself, but you were defeated and fell; how can you guide people?' Reaching this point, this mountain monk could not help but close the volume and heave a long sigh: If that were really so, what distinction between black and white would there be? When the two great beings met, it was like a dark dragon playing with a pearl, a hungry hawk snatching food—what mess was there? If it were like this, what good Ciming would one seek? Juefan's knowledge and views were vast; he had annotated the *Śūraṅgama-sūtra*, and his writings upholding the school and establishing the teachings pervaded the monasteries; how would he be willing to blind the eyes of later students with useless words? For two years at Nanyue, I wished to find a fellow traveler to resolve this suspicion, but could not find one. When I reached Yunju, in the quarters there was a copy of the *Extensive Records of Dahui*, very worn. People said: 'There was a Chan practitioner who copied it when exiled in Meiyang and left it in the quarters.' I borrowed it to read; after only two or three fascicles, I happened upon this very case. Dahui said: 'I always laugh at Hong Juefan's insistence on randomly making far-fetched interpretations. When Senior Monk Ju said: "Fabricating elders are as plentiful as hemp and millet," he had already lifted Langye up to the Brahmā heaven.' Seeing this, this mountain monk felt as if doused with ice and snow in the summer heat, and it again verified what this humble one had held; Dahui truly had the peerless eye of the school! In the sentences following, he also said: 'This is the realm of the great beings Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra, not to be measured by ordinary feelings.' He also said: 'While at Zhenjing's place, Juefan did not experience much breakthrough. Because of circumstances he left the monastery and parted from the master too early; therefore he had places where he arrived and places where he did not arrive. For example, when he compiled the case of Longya visiting Cuiwei: Ya asked, "What is the intention of the ancestral master coming from the West?" Wei said, "Pass me the meditation board." Ya passed the meditation board to Cuiwei; Wei took it and immediately struck him. Ya said, "Strike if you will, but there still is no intention of the ancestral master coming from the West." He also asked Linji, "What is the intention of the ancestral master coming from the West?" Ji said, "Pass me the cushion." Ya passed the cushion to Linji; Ji took it and immediately struck him. Ya said, "Strike if you will, but there still is no intention of the ancestral master coming from the West." He also asked Dongshan, "What is the intention of the ancestral master coming from the West?" Shan said, "Wait until the Dong river flows backward, then I will tell you." Arriving here, his mental paths were severed and his contrivances exhausted; he could only bow.' Later students, their eyes already unclear, seeing that he succeeded Dongshan, say that when he saw Cuiwei and Linji back then, he had not penetrated—one dog barks at an illusion, and a thousand monkeys snarling take it for real. Yunmen had his breakthrough seeing Muzhou, yet succeeded Xuefeng; only Xuedou saw through to his marrow. In his verses on antiquity, right at the start he says: 'In the Longya Mountains, the dragon has no eyes.' These words are pungent and hard to approach, for his functions were mostly like this. Just as when versifying the passage distinguishing vision in the *Śūraṅgama*: 'When I do not see, why do you not see where I do not see? If you see my not seeing, it is naturally not the characteristic of not seeing. If you do not see where I do not see, it is naturally not an object; how is it not you?' Old Śākyamuni bared it completely and exposed it cleanly, speaking so clearly; yet he versified: 'The whole elephant and whole ox are no different from cataracts; / From the beginning, adept masters shared the name of groping. / If you now wish to see the Yellow-Headed Old Man, / In kṣetra after kṣetra and dust after dust, you are halfway on the road.' For instance, like the blind men groping the elephant: though they know the elephant, they do not see the whole elephant; like Cook Ding carving the ox: though he carves the ox, he has not grasped the whole ox. If one reaches the stage of the whole elephant and whole ox, it is called the extremity of principle where sentiment is forgotten; yet Xuedou says: 'Even if you reach the whole elephant and whole ox, how are they different from illusory cataracts?' He simply took what old Śākyamuni pointed out to show people and overturned it all at once. Whenever this old fellow operated, every move was arsenic and wolfsbane, yet Juefan said: 'Xuedou blamed him as a blind dragon in dead water.' Clearly it was the living intention of the patriarchs, yet he understood it as a dead doctrine! He clearly said: 'In the Longya Mountains, the dragon has no eyes; / How could dead water stir the ancient style? / Meditation boards and cushions cannot be used; / They should only be entrusted to Master Lu.' This is on par with 'fabricating elders are as plentiful as hemp and millet.' Fearing people would not understand, Xuedou further composed a verse: 'Once entrusted to Master Lu, what is to be relied upon? / Do not, while sitting and leaning, continue the lamp of the patriarchs. / Worthy of facing the evening clouds that return without merging, / The distant mountains stretch boundlessly in green layer upon layer.' Here, thousands of gates and tens of thousands of doors are broken through at once. It was not that Juefan did not know where Xuedou settled things, but because his function was of a single moment, his error was for a thousand ages. If a practitioner of the Way does not experience the monkey dying once, how can they distinguish the corrupt from the upright? If they do not experience the monkey reviving once, how can they escape birth and death? Just now there were so many tools and fixtures; patch-robed monks temporarily hang up their bottles and bowls for ninety days—if they do not push through, they fail the great matter of itinerant pilgrimage; if they push through, it is like a commoner being appointed prime minister, the joy of a lifetime. If this is not yet so, even waiting until Maitreya descends to transform beings, and the kalpa of emptiness enters nirvāṇa again, coming forth again to guide without end, one still will not have settled the matter. Why is this?" Striking with the whisk: "I advise you to put on your robe and sit where you have attained it; do not snap pine branches to brush away moss traces. You have been standing long.