萬松老人評唱天童覺和尚頌古從容庵錄 5.9

5.9

The Master said: Yantou said: "You must let it flow forth directly from your own breast, to cover heaven and cover earth for me in the future." Now saying "Heaven covers and earth supports"—how inverted! This is spoken according to human sentiment. Human sentiment all maintains that heaven and earth give birth to human beings, calling them the Three Powers. Buddhism, on the contrary, holds that human beings give birth to heaven and earth; therefore the three realms are mind-only, and the myriad phenomena are consciousness-only. Here, it is beaten into a lump, smelted into a single mass, pervading the dharmadhātu without boundary or mark. In the Śūraṅgama-sūtra, the Buddha told Ānanda: "You observe the nature of earth: coarsened, it is the great earth; refined, it is fine dust motes, down to the dust mote that is neighbor to voidness. Dividing the boundary marks of that ultimate subtle form, it is formed of seven parts. Dividing further the neighbor to voidness, it is the true nature of emptiness." Wansong frequently cites the Xinxin ming: "The utmost small is the same as the large, realms forgotten and cut off; the utmost large is the same as the small, no boundary or mark seen." If someone asks, "What is the greatest thing in the world?" one should say, "True emptiness." Why? Because the utmost large is the same as the small, no boundary or mark seen. If someone asks, "What is the smallest thing in the world?" one should say, "True emptiness." Why? Because the utmost small is the same as the large, realms forgotten and cut off. Alas! What kind of man was the Third Patriarch? He produced a single phrase, and monks throughout the world cannot leap out of it! A monk asked Zhaozhou: "What is the mysterious within the mysterious?" Zhou said: "How long have you been mysterious?" The monk said: "Mysterious for a long time." Zhou said: "If not for this old monk, you would almost have been mystified to death!" Dongshan's Xuanzhong ming says: "Do not go facing toward it; returning, you turn your back on your father." Since it pervades the dharmadhātu and is forged into a single mass, how could there laboriously be a separate mysterious subtlety outside the dust? How could there be front or back, facing towards or turning away? When the Buddha did not appear in the world, it was not decreased; when the Buddha appeared in the world to point it out and expound it, it was not increased. Praising the breadth of the ocean, boasting of the brightness of the sun—these are not worth speaking of, all being superfluous words. When Nanquan and Shanshan were in general labor picking bracken, Nanquan held up a stalk and said: "This is very good for an offering." Shanshan said: "Not only this; even a hundred delicacies, he would not pay them heed." Nanquan said: "Although it is like this, each person must taste it before attaining it." Dayang Ming'an entered the hall and said: "Do not walk the road of the place of mind; do not sit in the merit of the place of non-being. Leave behind both being and non-being; vast and open, heaven and earth are void." Therefore Nanquan said: "Everyone eats a single stalk of vegetable; if you seek another stalk, you enter hell like an arrow shot." Wansong says: Today is the seventh day of the human month.