六祖大師法寶壇經 1.182

1.182

When the Buddha's words were not practiced, the Buddha's robe became an object of contention. / Neglecting what is near and prizing what is distant is the common inclination from ancient times to the present. / When Father Ni was alive, he possessed not a single mile of land, / Yet after the dream of the funerary offering, his shoes have been preserved for a thousand generations. / Consider the ancient Liang: it was like a mad elephant; / Bodhidharma came to save the world, acting as a king of physicians. / Because words could not cure them, he effected transformation through an object, / Like holding tallies and credentials when travelling through double barriers. / The common folk, not knowing the official, look upon his carriage and are awed; / Worldlings, not knowing the Buddha, consider obtaining his robe to be precious. / In a robe of dyed, broken color, the Way does not reside; / Yet through it people came to believe in the Way, and thus it was made a treasure. / Before the Sixth Patriarch became famous, his origins were humble; / When he returned to the wolfish wilderness, the frontier populace was ignorant and naive. / If there were no vessel of trust, to what would sentient beings turn? / This was opening an expedient gate, not merely transmitting a robe. / A beginning must have an end; how could the transmission go on endlessly? / Things must come to an end; why rely on the robe for long? / Knowing the end before the end comes, its utility is never exhausted. / My Way is imperishable—what does it have to do with a robe? / Once its use has already been spent, what is not a straw dog?