佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄 10.71

10.71

儒門子貢極有功於東家聖人。藉令良馬見鞭影而奔。皆如瞠若乎後之顏子。吾聖師遊乎何言之天久矣。靈山會上。四眾海集。世尊拈花宗旨。諸人罔措。獨迦葉尊者。微為之破顏。與吾教中一唯之外口耳俱喪。同一頓徹懸悟。當時曾參。不直下剖擊忠恕之祕鑰。豈惟門人之惑滋甚。千載之下。何以祛一貫之迷雲乎。異時成都佛果圜悟老禪。笏夾山丈室。拈提雪竇頌古百則。其大弟子杲上座。懼學人泥於言句。辜負從上諸祖。取老和尚舌頭。一截併付烈焰。煙而颺之拉𣜂堆。自以巨壑太虛投置毫滴。如古德德山賣弄油糍婆前。此疏鈔已埃冷而無餘矣。野火燒不盡。春風吹又生。花落碧巖。陽坡如繡。歷過去劫。死灰復然。不知何許。許多葛藤。一一從嵎中張居士手栽無影樹子上。全體敗露。直得般若無說諸天雨花。百七八十年。衲僧驀地。橫穿鼻孔。從前不曾嗅底寶熏。一旦水湧雲蒸。於八萬四千毛孔。悉普悉遍。可謂甚深希有。難值難遇之事。已而居士二子得心疾。或謂。勤寶經杲上座燬板。居士不當拾遺燼。而日月光景之故。受如是報。居士者疑其說。以質於予。予謂。圜悟門人人人而杲上座。碧巖自碧。何得有說杲上座。見月亡指。遂乃追尤古佛。毒燎亘天。倒却剎竿。不放一綫。彼未甞識月者。誰將乘一指而示之。或者又謂。杲上座火此書。盟之社鬼者深重。居士二子之患正坐此。予謂。當杲上座灼然秉炬時。煉得故紙通紅。何緣密室通風。老勤巴命門舌根。別自有不壞處。一星迸散。明月空山。張居士那裏得這消息來。把天然一段西蜀錦機。依舊織作舊日花樣。意者主林神陰為之地。訶護至今。料亦是此書合出世因緣時節。清涼池上。針芥相逢。則書寫讀誦。為人演說之功。應獲殊勝福德。何況金石刻鏤。展轉流布。居士二子之心疾根本。本不在此。客作漢。妄以情識卜度。居士緣其目前不足計拔之禍福。亦以情識卜度之。是相隨赴火坑也。豈不冤哉。冥驗記。沛國周氏。三子並瘖。一日有客造門曰。君可內省宿愆。忽猛憶兒時見燕窠三子。伺其母出。各以一蒺藜吞之。斯須共斃。母還悲鳴而去。常自悔責。客曰。君既知悔責。罪今免矣。三子即皆能言。然則居士二子之病風喪心。得無亦有可悔恨之事乎。談般若者。若為人輕賤。是人先世罪業應墮惡道。以今世人輕賤故。先世罪業即為消滅。居士能於此有省。縱無始劫來所造諸業。當應時消滅。即君二子之心疾。當如周氏三子之應時能言。可以不疑。世尊住世。四十九年。六百函文字。覆藏遍界。若從杲上座之說。萬年一念。更留踪跡作麼。向上禪林無限尊宿有兩句。最端的曰。任爾即心即佛。我但非心非佛。今而後有謗如來正法輪者。君但應之曰。任汝說杲上座底是。我只說勤老師底是。若不如是。即恐燎却面門。四百四病一時發矣。將如居士二子心疾何。不見古人道。養子方知父母恩。居士學佛知恩。臨老懺悔。他日作家爐鞴。跳出丈六金身。不知還見勤老師真箇揚眉竪拂否。若還一句薦得。向道佛祖有誓。罪不重科。莫殃及他家兒孫好。雖然如是。且得沒交涉。是年延祐丁巳中元日。海粟老人馮子振題。

In the Confucian school, Zigong rendered immense service to the Sage of the Eastern House. Even if good horses were to gallop upon seeing the shadow of the whip, and all were like Yanzi, behind whom others merely gazed in awe, our Sage Master would have roamed in the realm of 'no words' for a long time. At the assembly on Vulture Peak, the fourfold assembly gathered like the ocean; when the Bhagavat held up a flower as the essential principle, none knew what to do. Only Venerable Kāśyapa slightly cracked a smile; along with the utter abandonment of mouth and ear beyond the single 'yes' in our teaching, it was the same sudden penetration and profound awakening. At that time, had Zeng Shen not directly unlocked the secret key of loyalty and consideration, would not the perplexity of the disciples have grown ever greater? How, after a thousand years, could the confusing clouds over the 'single thread that binds it all' have been dispelled? At another time, Old Chan Foguo Yuanwu of Chengdu took up residence in the abbot's room at Jiashan, bringing up and discussing Xuedou's one hundred verse eulogies on antiquity. His great disciple, Senior Monk Gao, feared that students would get bogged down in words and phrases and betray the successive patriarchs from above; he took the Old Venerable's tongue and completely committed it in one stroke to the fierce flames, scattering its smoke upon the trash heap, considering it like throwing a tiny drop into a vast chasm or the great void—just as of old the worthy Deshan flaunted himself before the old woman selling fried cakes, these commentaries were already reduced to cold ashes leaving nothing behind. The wild fire cannot burn them away completely; the spring breeze blows, and they grow again. Flowers fall upon the Blue Cliff; the sunny slope is like brocade. Passing through kalpas of the past, the dead ashes rekindle. How could one know how many entangling vines would, one by one, fully reveal themselves from the shadowless tree planted by the hands of Layman Zhang of Yuzhong? It directly brings about the prajñā without speech and the heavens raining flowers. For one hundred and seventy or eighty years, patch-robed monks had their nostrils pierced across all of a sudden; the precious incense they had never smelled before suddenly gushed like water and steamed like clouds, pervading and penetrating all eighty-four thousand pores. Truly, this may be called a most profound, rare, and hard-to-encounter matter. Soon after, the Layman's two sons fell ill with mental affliction. Some said: 'Qin's precious scripture had its blocks destroyed by Senior Gao; the Layman ought not to have gathered the leftover cinders, and because of this eclipse of the light of the sun and moon, he suffered such retribution.' The Layman doubted their words and inquired of me. I said: 'Among Yuanwu's disciples, each and every one was a Senior Gao. The Blue Cliff is naturally blue; how can one say Senior Gao saw the moon and forgot the finger, and subsequently blamed the ancient Buddhas, his toxic conflagration reaching the heavens, knocking over the monastery flagpole without leaving a single thread? For those who have never yet recognized the moon, who will point it out by relying on a finger?' Some also said: 'Senior Gao burned this book and made a profound and grave pact with the local earth spirits; the affliction of the Layman's two sons is due precisely to this.' I said: 'When Senior Gao clearly held the torch and refined the old paper until it was bright red, why was the secret room ventilated? The life-pulse and tongue-root of Old Qin naturally possessed an indestructible part. A single spark burst forth into the bright moon over the empty mountain. Where did Layman Zhang obtain this message, taking a natural piece of Western Shu brocade loom and weaving it as of old into the former pattern? Presumably the forest-protecting deities secretly made room for it and guarded it until now; it must also be that this book met the right time and conditions to appear in the world. Meeting like a needle and a mustard seed by the Qingliang Pond, the merit of copying, reciting, and explaining it to others should reap extraordinary blessings and virtue; how much more so for engraving it upon metal and stone to circulate it far and wide? The root of the mental affliction of the Layman's two sons was originally not here at all. Hired laborers mistakenly speculate with emotional consciousness; because of current misfortunes and blessings that are unworthy of calculation and deliverance, the Layman likewise speculates with emotional consciousness. This is following one another into the fire pit! Is it not a pity? In the Records of Miraculous Responses, a Mr. Zhou of the State of Pei had three sons who were all mute. One day a guest came to his gate and said: "Sir, you may reflect inwardly on your past offenses." Suddenly he vividly remembered that as a child he saw three chicks in a swallow's nest; waiting until their mother flew out, he fed each of them a cocklebur, and in a moment they all died. The mother returned, wailed mournfully, and departed. He had always blamed and reproached himself. The guest said: "Since you know to reproach yourself, your crime is now pardoned." The three sons were immediately able to speak. If so, as for the Layman's two sons suffering from madness and losing their minds, might there not also be something worthy of regret and remorse? It is said that when one speaks of prajñā, if one is despised and degraded by others, that person's sinful karma from prior lives would have caused them to fall into the evil destinies; because of being despised and degraded by people in the present life, the sinful karma of prior lives is extinguished. If the Layman can have an awakening upon this, even the karma created since beginningless kalpas will be extinguished at once; then your two sons' mental affliction should immediately be healed like Zhou's three sons who could speak at once—of this you need not doubt. The Bhagavat dwelt in the world for forty-nine years, with six hundred cases of written texts covering and hiding the entire realm. If one were to follow Senior Gao's explanation of ten thousand years in a single thought, why leave any traces at all? Endless venerable elders in the transcendent Chan groves have two most precise lines: "Let you say 'mind itself is Buddha'; I only say 'neither mind nor Buddha.'" From now on, if anyone slanders the Tathāgata's true wheel of the Dharma, you need only answer them, saying: "Let you say Senior Gao is right; I only say Teacher Qin is right." If it were not like this, one might fear the front of your face would be scorched and the four hundred and four ailments would break out at once. What would you do about the mental affliction of the Layman's two sons? Have you not seen what the ancients said: "Only when raising children does one know the kindness of parents." The Layman studies Buddhism and knows kindness, repenting in his old age. On another day, jumping out of the master's furnace and bellows as a sixteen-foot golden body, will he truly see Teacher Qin raising his eyebrows and lifting the whisk, or not? If you can recognize it under a single phrase, tell them: "The Buddhas and patriarchs have made a vow: crimes are not punished twice; do not let disaster fall upon another family's descendants, please." Even though it is like this, for now there is no connection at all.' On the Zhongyuan Day of the dingsi year of Yanyou [1317], inscribed by the Old Man of Haisu, Feng Zizhen.