宏智禪師廣錄 5.21

5.21

At an informal gathering, a monk asked: "'When stains and grime are exhausted, light first appears; when mind and phenomena are both forgotten, nature is truly real.' I wonder, what is the meaning of this principle?"
The Master said: "Vast and open, utterly without reliance; luminous and wondrous, shining only upon itself."
The monk said: "It may be called 'the moon's reflection in a clear pool, the incense burner in an ancient shrine.'"
The Master said: "To manage such complete cessation of news!"
The monk said: "Or rather, does mind manifest from phenomena, while phenomena arise pursuing mind?"
The Master said: "Neither is it so at all. Bring another question!"
The monk said: "I shall wait for another time."

A monk asked: "It is recorded: A monk asked Fengxue, 'Speech and silence involve transcendence and subtlety; how can one penetrate without violating [either]?' Fengxue said, 'I always remember the south of the Yangtze in the third month; where partridges cry, the hundred flowers are fragrant.' I wonder, what place is this?"
The Master said: "Transcending the multitude of images, emerging beyond names and words."
The monk said: "Manifest, manifest!"
The Master said: "Seeing what do you speak like this?"
The monk said: "What can be done about piece after piece of a sincere heart, piece after piece of a sincere heart?"
The Master said: "Where the path of words and language is cut off, fundamentally there is no past, future, or present."
The monk said: "Xuedou said, 'Splitting open the belly and gouging out the heart.' What is the meaning of this?"
The Master said: "In the end, there is no place for you to apply conceptual understanding."
The monk said: "Just as the Venerable has said: 'Harmonizing with the light provokes affairs; scraping and scraping builds a house.' How about this?"
The Master said: "Fearing that you would enter deliberation, cutting off people's contrivances."
The monk said: "Does it still match where that monk asked?"
The Master said: "Resembling, it indeed resembles it; yet faintly separated by thousands and myriads of leagues."
The monk said: "If suddenly someone were to ask the Venerable, 'Speech and silence involve transcendence and subtlety; how can one penetrate without violating [either]?'"
The Master said: "'Oṃ ārolik svāhā.'"
The monk said: "I shall faithfully accept and practice it."

A monk asked: "It is recorded: Zhaozhou arrived at Yunju. Yunju said, 'Old as you are, why do you not seek a place to dwell?' Zhaozhou said, 'Where do you tell this one to dwell?' Yunju said, 'In front of the mountain there is an ancient temple foundation.' Zhaozhou said, 'Why does the Venerable not dwell there yourself?' I wonder, what was the meaning?"
The Master said: "All sentient beings arrive here together; all buddhas do likewise."
The monk said: "I wonder, where is the road to that ancient temple foundation?"
The Master said: "Clearly containing the whale ocean's breadth; coldly shooting the toad wheel's narrowness."
The monk said: "Dew soaks a thousand peaks in cold; clouds envelop ten thousand trees in chill."
The Master said: "You must further turn the function of the kalpas before you can unite with that person."
The monk said: "Stars shift, the moon dims, without any news; guests disperse from the cloud tower, the wine bowl is dry."
The Master said: "Just at such a time, how do you distinguish it?"
The monk said: "A mouth full of ice and frost, freezing to the bone; with whom can one discuss the news within this?"
The Master said: "That is somewhat better."

The Master then said: "Mind is the sense-organ, phenomena are the sense-objects; both are like stains upon a mirror. When stains and grime are exhausted, light first appears; when mind and phenomena are both forgotten, nature is truly real. When reaching such a time, everything must shed away completely before it works. Just when shedding away, neither self nor other clings to any place. Therefore it is said: 'The mind that pervades the ten directions is not in any place.' At that time, it is not any mind; at that time, it is not any phenomenon; therefore, it pervades all places.

"A monk asked Fengxue, 'Speech and silence involve transcendence and subtlety; how can one penetrate without violating [either]?' Fengxue said, 'I always remember the south of the Yangtze in the third month; where partridges cry, the hundred flowers are fragrant.' Brothers, you cannot add the tip of a single hair, nor can you subtract the tip of a single hair. Directly, the four corners fall flat to the earth, immovable and unshakeable. If you can discern it like this, is it not precisely manifest before you? If you vaguely harbor sentiment or indistinctly establish understanding, that becomes entangling vines of paths and tracks, and in the end there will be no clean part. If you directly vomit out all the wild fox drool, what affair could there be?

"Brothers, fundamentally it is just like this. If only on the mind-ground you do not establish a single speck of dust, then you will know that that does not come, this does not go, and in between there is no abiding. If you attend to the affairs before you, you lose the affairs behind you; if you attend to the affairs behind you, you lose the affairs before you. If you dwell neither before nor behind, what further affair could there be? The past mind has already ceased, the future mind has not yet arrived, and the present mind is empty and tranquil; then you can be vast and open, free from stains and grime.

"Xuedou also said, 'Splitting open the belly and gouging out the heart.' When arriving here, not even an awl can pierce in. A moment ago, this monk asked, 'Speech and silence involve transcendence and subtlety; how can one penetrate without violating [either]?' This mountain monk answered him, 'Oṃ ārolik svāhā.' It must be like this before it works. If one is a clear-sighted fellow, he precisely says that Tiantong is fully complete. If one is not clear-sighted, treating it as words and treating it as principle, what occasion of resonance could there be?

"Have you not seen: Zhaozhou asked Touzi, 'When one who has died the great death comes back to life, how is it?' Touzi said, 'Walking at night is not permitted; arriving at daybreak is necessary.' If you recognize it at that time, then you will know: right within brightness there is darkness, do not meet it as darkness; right within darkness there is brightness, do not view it as brightness. Where all phenomena are exhausted, that moment is clearly and ever enduring; when all phenomena arise, that moment is empty and ever quiescent. You must know that within death there is life, and within life there is death.

"Zhaozhou also arrived at Yunju. Yunju said, 'Old as you are, why do you not seek a place to dwell?' Zhaozhou said, 'Where do you tell this one to dwell?' Yunju said, 'In front of the mountain there is an ancient temple foundation.' Zhaozhou said, 'Why does the Venerable not dwell there yourself?' Yunju then ceased. Brothers, for all buddhas arriving here, this is the dwelling place; for all sentient beings arriving here, this is the dwelling place. If you do not arrive here, what do you call the ground of resting? You must know that when thoroughly extinguished right on the spot, from this it is established, and you then see that it is born right on the spot.

"Have you not seen: Mountain Master Xiu reformed the burial rite: all buddhas and all sentient beings are buried toward this place without exception. Xuefeng said, 'Brothers share a cross, with one mind wearing a single rite. After the firewood is consumed and the fire is extinguished, the secret chamber is rotten like mud.' Take care!"