黃檗山斷際禪師傳心法要 1.3

1.3

There is a great Chan master whose dharma name is Xiyun, residing beneath Vulture Peak on Mount Huangbo in Gao'an County, Hongzhou. He is an immediate spiritual descendant of the Sixth Patriarch of Caoxi, and a dharma nephew of Xitang and Baizhang. He alone bears the seal of the supreme vehicle that transcends words. He transmits only the One Mind, with no other dharma besides. The mind-essence is also empty, and the myriad conditions are all still. It is like the great disc of the sun rising into empty space, its radiance shining brilliantly, pure without a speck of dust. Those who realize it find no new or old, no shallow or deep. Those who expound it establish no theoretical interpretations and set up no doctrinal school. Not opening doors or windows, right here it is. Stirring a thought is immediately to deviate. After that, one realizes original Buddha. Therefore his words are concise and his principles direct; his way is steep and his conduct solitary. Disciples from the four quarters look toward the mountain and hasten thither; seeing his presence, they awaken. The assembly like the sea, coming and going, is always over a thousand people. In the second year of Huichang [842 CE], while I was inspector at Zhongling, I invited him from the mountain to the prefecture and accommodated him at Longxing Monastery, questioning him about the Way morning and night. In the second year of Dazhong [848 CE], while inspector at Wanling, I again went with courtesy to invite him to my administrative seat, housing him at Kaiyuan Monastery, where I received the Dharma morning and night. After retiring, I recorded it, getting one or two parts out of ten. Bearing it as a mind seal, I did not dare publish it. Now, fearing that its spirit-penetrating, refined meaning might not be heard in the future, I have brought it forth and bestowed it upon the monks of his gate, Dazhou and Fajian, for them to return to the former mountain's Guangtang Monastery, and ask the venerable elders and the assembly of the Dharma how it agrees or differs with what they personally heard from him daily in former times.