佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄 9.12

9.12

Master Yunmen produced over eighty kalyāṇamitras. More than seventy years after his passing, his stūpa was opened and inspected: he was dignified as before. His insight was clear, and his dynamic situations were swift. In general, his instructive words, alternative words, and substitute words were straightforwardly solitary and steep. This gong'an alone is like flint-struck fire, like a flash of lightning—truly manifesting like spirits and vanishing like ghosts. Head Monk Qing said, 'Does the entire Tripiṭaka teaching still have this kind of talk?' Nowadays, people mostly make a living based on emotional interpretations, saying: 'The Buddha is the guide of the triple world and the compassionate father of the four kinds of beings; since he is the ancient Buddha, why would he intersect with the exposed pillar?' If you understand it this way, you will never grasp it. Some call it 'singing out from within nothingness.' Little do they know that when lineage masters speak, it cuts off conscious thinking and cuts off emotional calculation; it cuts off birth and death and cuts off Dharma dust. Entering the true position, not a single dharma is preserved. The moment you formulate a rationalization and make calculations, your feet and hands are bound. Tell me, what was that ancient's meaning? He merely made mind and environment as one, so that good and bad, right and wrong could not shake him. Then speaking of existence works, and speaking of nonexistence works; having dynamic function works, and lacking dynamic function works. Arriving here, every clap is the imperative. My late teacher Wuzu said, 'Yunmen, big and small, turned out to be faint-hearted. Had it been this mountain monk, I would simply have told him: the eighth dynamic.' He said, 'The ancient Buddha and the exposed pillar intersect—which dynamic is this?' Temporarily, he wrapped it up before their eyes. A monk asked, 'I wonder, what is the meaning?' Yunmen said, 'A braided cord bought for thirty cash.' He possessed the eye that fixes heaven and earth. Since no one understood, later he spoke on their behalf: 'Clouds arise on the southern mountain; / Rain falls on the northern mountain,' tentatively opening an entry path for later students. Thus Xuedou merely brought up his place of fixing heaven and earth to let people see it. If you slightly lapse into calculations or expose a sharp tip, you will miss it face to face. One only needs to trace back to Yunmen's fundamental principle and clarify his precipitous dynamic. Therefore, he produced a eulogy saying: