宏智禪師廣錄 5.13

5.13

At an informal gathering, a monk asked: "I recall that a monk asked Shaoshan, 'Where right and wrong do not reach, is there still a phrase or not?' Shan said, 'A single wisp of solitary cloud does not expose ugliness.' What is the meaning?"
The Master said, "Inside there is a little something difficult to explain to people."
The monk said, "How is it after it is spoken?"
The Master said, "Horns sprout."
The monk said, "If so, then ugliness and clumsiness are exposed."
The Master said, "Coming among different species to share the work of transformation, / what harm is there in meeting again in the shadows?"
The monk said, "Holding an over-the-head staff in hand, / meeting spring, one points out strange flowers."
The Master said, "Is it really so or not?"
The monk said, "It directly results in every thing being it, each object being that."
The Master said, "Unable to return for ten years, / having forgotten the road by which one came."
The monk said, "Why is it like this?"
The Master said, "One must forget it completely before it is attained."
The Master then said: "This matter of investigating Chan is truly about liberating oneself from birth and death. If you cannot be liberated from birth and death, what do you call Chan? Tell me, how does birth arise? How does death occur? How does liberation occur? If for a single thought you are deluded about the root and follow emotion, you are dragged into all places, in confusion and tangled turmoil. Since you are born from what is not free, you will also die from what is not free. If you are a clear-sighted fellow, fundamentally there is no place from which you come; clearly functioning in this way, you are at all times and in all places completely freed with nothing to rely on, standing head and shoulders above all phenomena. At that time, not bringing along the four great elements and five aggregates, you will then have a way to step forward. On the thirtieth day of the twelfth month, you go on just like this as before. It is said, 'Coming with no place from which one comes, going with no place to which one arrives.' At that time, pure without conditions, vast without location, the three time periods are severed and the six gates are empty. Therefore it is said: 'Vast and expansive! Bright and radiant! Utterly transcending thought and discussion.' Thought cannot reach it, discussion cannot touch it. As soon as a mental thought sprouts, it becomes a continuous flow. If all mental thoughts are exhausted, no heaven reaches you, and no hell reaches you. The empty space of the ten directions is purely clean and undefiled, vast and clear. Coming alertly in this way is where all buddhas and bodhisattvas are born. Planting seeds with delusion and love is where sentient beings are born. Mixed with good and evil between them, they become good destinies and evil destinies. If good and evil are like floating clouds, with nowhere for arising and ceasing to exist, neither sentient beings nor buddhas can stand here. The Sixth Patriarch said: 'Do not think of good, do not think of evil. Just at such a time, return to me Senior Monk Ming's original face before his parents gave birth to him.' Brothers, why not quit right now? Why not rest right now? If you can rest completely and quit securely, the thousand sages cannot lead you along. Where you cannot be led along is yourself. Do not make up principles and chew on words and phrases. Wild strikes and random shouts are all the revolving of karmic consciousness. Furthermore, if you take instructions from another and accept his pointing out, that is again relying on grass and clinging to wood. You must have teacherless wisdom and spontaneous wisdom: seeing nature does not retain a buddha; great awakening does not preserve a teacher. Only then will you have a bit of the flavor of a patch-robed monk. And tell me: how should one conduct oneself so as to sever birth and death and transcend the ordinary and the sacred? Beneath the shadowless tree, the same boat; / on the lapis lazuli palace, no good friend."