虛堂和尚語錄 4.5

4.5

The Buddha is the Great Physician King, skilled at observing all ailments. If sentient beings believe and take his medicine, there is no illness that cannot be cured. For from the beginning, he himself was deeply afflicted with this illness. After six years on the Snow Mountains, examining materia medica, on the night of the eighth day of the twelfth month, his illness was thoroughly cured; in a state of no-mind he obtained this formulary, declaring, 'Remarkable! All sentient beings possess the wisdom and virtuous marks of the Tathāgata, but because of delusional clinging, they fail to realize it.' Thereupon, rising from beneath the Bodhi tree, he went to the Deer Park; in three months he regulated their faculties, and five people were liberated. Then he was able to use his medicine skillfully. Not only were Great Master Sengcan and the Short Uncle deeply afflicted in their vital organs with this fatal illness, but the ancestral masters with great eyes in both the Western Heaven and this land have all suffered from this illness. Even if Lu Ban and Bian Que had eyes that penetrate the barrier and the dynamic to bring people to life, they would not know the source of this illness. Handing down the seal to one another, they in turn used this illness to liberate the sentient beings of the great earth, bringing light and ease to both those sitting and those standing. Now observing Master Yuan's illness, could it not be this? Otherwise, tranquil on the outside but agitated within, the form remaining while the spirit wanders, emerging here and sinking there, laboring without achievement—then the worldly illness of impermanence would manifest at all times, and could the Tathāgata's medicine not save him? If you step upon the foundation of the Tathāgata's true illness, the illness will naturally vanish and the medicine be discarded. When illness is received like this, there is no illness that cannot be healed."