宏智禪師廣錄 5.22

5.22

At an informal gathering, a monk asked: "For a person whose ground is secure and close, how does he lift his foot?"
The Master said: "Shifting one step inside; the bright moon follows the flowing waves."
The monk said: "When taking a step forward, the eyes are completely filled with light."
The Master said: "Just at such a time, how do you advance?"
The monk said: "When turning the body where the vase of the kalpa is empty, the scenery within does not fall away."
The Master said: "Faintly, the moon just rises; indistinctly, the stars shift again."
The monk said: "Just as when one has not yet taken a step, where does one settle one's body and establish one's life?"
The Master said: "The Silver River is pure and without waves; at midnight the moon spans the autumn."
The monk said: "For a person of spiritual penetrations and sport, how does he release his body?"
The Master said: "Turning his gaze, he knows to return; lonely and detached, he returns to his position."
The monk said: "In all places, traces are utterly cut off."
The Master said: "Tell me: when sporting with spiritual penetrations, what should one naturally be like?"
The monk said: "Numinous and unfailing, clearly and ever knowing."
The Master said: "In the end, you have not yet been able to transcend."
The monk said: "Who would dare do so deliberately?"
The Master said: "Manifesting responsively in all places, without leaving a trace the breadth of a silk thread or a hair."

The Master then said: "The affairs of dust-eons are only within a single finger-snap. If within a single finger-snap the bounds of before and after are cut off, at that time no position can be occupied. Prior to the dust-eons, it was just this affair. The buddhas of the three times looking up cannot reach your crown; the patriarchs of the six generations peering down cannot reach your heels. Even if it be buddhas or patriarchs, they only have a share in peeking sideways and looking up in praise; they never dare speak a phrase directly to your face. Even if you exhaust all expedient means and establish all manner of gates and thresholds, wishing to speak a phrase directly to your face is impossible. A person of genuine color naturally abides in his fundamental position, to the extent that when all buddhas appear in the world, they cannot encroach upon me; when all demons arise, they cannot encroach upon me. Prior to the dust-eons, this ground of a single sitting cloth is your own dwelling place. When everyone reaches that season, they do not encroach upon me, and I do not encroach upon them. The vast and open Dharma realm fundamentally has not a single hair of separation. If you can see through it at that moment, you are called a buddha. If you turn your back on awakening and merge with dust, that is the realm of sentient beings. When reaching the place of accomplishment, what further affair could there be? One must be secure and close, calm and ordinary.

"Therefore it is said: 'Coming from within the upright, within nothingness there is a road separated from dust. If only one can avoid offending the taboo of the reigning sovereign, it surpasses the tongue-cutting talent of the former dynasty.' If you have passed through here, naturally you do not offend anything at all. Right in the midst of bustling clamor, it is thoroughly distinct and cannot be mixed. That is naturally that; I am naturally I. A clearly aware single path, vast and open, where no one dares make an obstacle—this is the patch-robed monk's sphere of practice. Even if it were as small as a mustard seed, the single path within is just as vast. This is the realm of your true mind, down to whether great or small, square or round, endowed with so many wondrous aspects. Whether abiding on your own or verifying on your own, you naturally correspond like this. Therefore it is said: 'When a son of the Buddha abides in this ground, it is the Buddha's enjoyment; walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, he is always within it.' Take care!"