虛堂和尚語錄 8.64

8.64

Ascending the hall: "Recognising the mind and reaching the fundamental is looking at the sky while sitting in a well. Exhausting principles and exploring nature to the utmost is scooping the moon out of water. Even if you step past these two checkpoints and for a while borrow someone else's nostrils to breathe through in walking, standing, sitting, and lying down—even if you go straight on like this, you still fall into the four sicknesses of Perfect Enlightenment. How can one attain independent liberation without reliance?" Striking his staff, he said: "I long remember the third month south of the river: / Where the partridge cries, all the flowers are fragrant."