佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄 7.8

7.8

Yunmen said: "Within heaven and earth, inside the universe, therein lies a treasure, concealed within the mountain of form." Now tell me: was Yunmen's intention at the tip of the fishing pole, or was his intention on top of the lantern? These are several lines from Master Zhao's Treasure Store Treatise. Yunmen brought them up to instruct the assembly. When Master Zhao was at Xiaoyao Garden during the Later Qin composing treatises and copying the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa-sūtra, he finally realized that Zhuangzi and Laozi had not exhausted the wondrous. Zhao thereupon bowed to Kumārajīva as his teacher, and also called upon the bodhisattva Bhadrapāla at Waguan Temple, who had brought the transmission of the mind-seal from the twenty-seventh ancestor of the Western Heavens; Zhao penetrated deeply into its inner sanctum. One day Zhao met with disaster; when about to face execution, he begged for a seven-day reprieve to compose the Treasure Store Treatise. Yunmen then brought up four lines from the treatise to instruct the assembly. The overarching meaning says: how could an invaluable treasure be concealed within the skandhas and dhātus? The words in the treatise all tally with the discourse of our lineage. Have you not seen: Jingqing asked Caoshan, "When the principle of clear void is ultimately without body, how is it?" Caoshan said, "The principle is indeed like this; how about the phenomenon?" Jingqing said, "Like principle, like phenomenon." Caoshan said, "You might deceive me alone, but what will you do about the eyes of all the sages?" Jingqing said, "If there were no eyes of all the sages, how would one know it is not so?" Caoshan said, "Officially, not even a needle is admitted; privately, carts and horses may pass." Therefore it is said: "Within heaven and earth, inside the universe, therein lies a treasure, concealed within the mountain of form." The overarching meaning clarifies that everyone is fully endowed, each completely perfected. When Yunmen brought it up to instruct the assembly, it was already fully ready-made; he could not go further like a lecturer-monk, providing annotations for you. In his compassion he added another explanatory footnote for you, saying: "Take the lantern into the Buddha hall; bring the triple gate onto the lantern." Now tell me, when Yunmen spoke like this, what was his meaning? Have you not seen how the ancients said: "The real nature of ignorance is itself the Buddha-nature; the phantom-like empty body is itself the Dharma-body." They also said: "Directly through the ordinary mind one sees the Buddha-mind." The mountain of form is simply the four great elements and the five aggregates. "Therein lies a treasure, concealed within the mountain of form." Therefore it is said: "The Buddhas are in the mind; confused people seek outside. Harboring an invaluable treasure within yet failing to recognize it, a whole lifetime is wasted." It is also said: "The Buddha-nature is magnificently manifest; sentient beings who abide in marks find it hard to see. If one realizes that sentient beings are without self, how does my face differ from the Buddha's face? The mind is the original mind; the face is the face born of one's mother. The kalpa-rock may shift, but within this there is no change." Some merely recognize this clear and luminous awareness as the treasure; they just fail to attain its function, and also fail to attain its wondrousness. Therefore they cannot move or turn, cannot open up and clear away. The ancients said: "When exhausted, it changes; when it changes, it penetrates." "Take the lantern into the Buddha hall"—if ordinary sentiment could measure this, can you still measure "bring the triple gate onto the lantern"? Yunmen all at once shattered feelings, consciousness, discursive thoughts, gain, loss, right, and wrong for you. Xuedou said: "I love Shaoyang's newly established dynamic function; all his life he pulled out nails and drew out pegs for people." He also said: "How many occupy the seat on crooked wood? With a sharp blade he cuts them away, winning people's love." When he said, "Take the lantern into the Buddha hall," this single phrase had already cut off everything. And again, "Bring the triple gate onto the lantern"—if one discusses this matter, it is like sparks struck from flint, like a flash of lightning. Yunmen said: "If you can correspond to it, then find an entryway. The Buddhas of dust-specks are beneath your heels; the sacred teachings of the Tripiṭaka are on the tip of your tongue. You had better awaken to it! Monks, do not entertain false thoughts: heaven is heaven, earth is earth; mountains are mountains, waters are waters; monks are monks, laypeople are laypeople." After a long pause he said: "Bring the table-mountain in front of me for me to see!" Then a monk came forward and asked, "When a student sees mountains as mountains and waters as waters, how is it?" Yunmen said, "Why does the triple gate pass through here?" Fearing you would die away, he then made a stroke with his hand and said, "If you recognize it, it is the supreme taste of clarified butter (ghṛta); if you fail to recognize it, it turns into poison." Therefore it is said: "When completely understood, there is nothing to understand; at the mysterious of the mysterious, one must directly reprove it." Xuedou also brought it up, saying: "'Within heaven and earth, inside the universe, therein lies a treasure, concealed within the mountain of form'—hung upon the wall. For nine years Bodhidharma dared not look straight at it with his true eye; yet now patch-robed monks want to see it, so a blow of the staff right across the spine!" Look at that authentic lineage master: in the end he never binds people with actual Dharmas. Xuansha said: "It refuses to remain in a cage; call to it, and it will not turn its head. Even though it is like this, it is also a spiritual turtle dragging its tail." Xuedou's verse says: