佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄 6.47

6.47

Just as Yunmen said: "The staff has transformed into a dragon and swallowed up heaven and earth. Where do the mountains, rivers, and great earth come from?" If you say it exists, then you are blind; if you say it does not exist, then you are dead. Do you still see the place where Yunmen instructs people? Return my staff to me! People today do not understand the place where Yunmen reveals it alone, but instead say: "Identifying with form to illuminate the mind; attaching to objects to reveal the principle." Even if it were old Śākya preaching the Dharma for forty-nine years, could he not have known this sort of discourse? Why then did he need to hold up a flower, with Kāśyapa smiling, whereupon this old fellow blurted out: "I have the treasury of the true Dharma eye, the wondrous mind of nirvāṇa, which I entrust to Mahākāśyapa"? What need was there further to transmit singly the mind-seal? Since you people are guests at the ancestral masters' gate, can you also understand this singly transmitted mind? If there is a single thing in your chest, the mountains, rivers, and great earth appear tumultuously before you; if there is not a single thing in your chest, outside there is completely not the slightest hair. What talk is there of "principle and wisdom merging, realm and spirit conjoining"? Why? When one is understood, all are understood; when one is clear, all are clear. Changsha said: "Students of the Way do not recognize the real, only because they have always recognized the conscious spirit. The root of birth and death for immeasurable kalpas—fools call it the original person." If you suddenly break through the realm of the aggregates, body and mind become as one with nothing remaining outside the body, yet you still have not obtained even half of it. What talk is there of identifying with form to illuminate the mind, or attaching to objects to reveal the principle? An ancient said: "As soon as a single dust mote arises, the great earth is completely gathered in." Tell me, which single dust mote is this? If you recognize this single dust mote, you will recognize the staff. As soon as you pick up the staff, you will see its unhindered wondrous functioning. Speaking like this is already entangling vines, let alone transforming into a dragon! Head of the Repository Qing said: "In the 5,048 fascicles, has there ever been such talk?" Yunmen always brought forward the total dynamic and great functioning at the staff, enlivening people. Bajiao showed the assembly: "The hold of patch-robed monks is entirely at the tip of the staff." Yongjia also said: "It is not an empty convention of outward form; the Tathāgata's precious staff is his very footprint." Formerly, in the time of Dīpaṅkara Buddha, the Tathāgata spread his hair over the mud to wait for that Buddha. Dīpaṅkara said: "A monastery should be built at this spot." At that time a devaputra stuck in a blade of grass and said: "The monastery has been built." Tell me, all of you, from where does this message come? An ancestral master said: "Attaining verification at the staff's end; undertaking responsibility under the shout." Tell me, what do you undertake responsibility for? If someone suddenly asks: "What is the staff?" Could it be doing a somersault? Could it be clapping the hands once? These are all playing with ghosts and spirits; fortunately, they have no connection whatsoever. Xuedou's eulogy says: Chi (pronounced chi [in the phrase 'xushi chi', meaning to strip away/empty ritual]).