虛堂和尚語錄 8.69

8.69

Ascending the hall on entering the summer retreat, he took up his staff and said: "This staff, having rested in quiet for long, thinks of action; it wants to come out to display the strict regulations of the ancient Buddhas from two thousand years ago, desiring to test the patch-robed monks' ninety days of effort—looking left and glancing right, chanting in the morning and contemplating in the evening, seeing to it that entering the forest one does not stir the grass, and entering the water one does not stir waves, in order to manifest the virtue of following others in itinerant pilgrimage." Striking his staff, he said: "Staff, as for the Dharma essentials spoken of by those above, Nanshan will follow every one of them for the nine weeks of summer; you too must hold fast before you can succeed."