宗鏡錄 98.49

98.49

Master Qianqing said: 'All sentient beings—donkeys, mules, elephants, horses, centipedes, millipedes, the ten unwholesome deeds, the five heinous crimes, avidyā and false thoughts, the unresolved dharmas of rāga and dveṣa—all manifest from within the tathāgatagarbha. Originally they are buddha; it is merely that sentient beings, from beginningless kalpas, have fleetingly given rise to a single thought, and from this have rushed downstream down to the present day. Therefore, when the Buddha appeared in the world, he caused them to eliminate the mental faculty and cut off all discriminations. In one thought of resonance, they directly transcend to right awakening. Why should one teach them to have much knowledge and much understanding, perturbing their body and mind, so that the radiant light of bodhi cannot manifest? If you can now simply cut off seeing, hearing, sensing, and knowing, give rise to no discrimination regarding external objects, wear clothes and eat food according to the time—the ordinary mind is the Way. This dharma is exceedingly difficult.' A student asked: 'Master, what about when there is no lamp after nightfall?' The Master said: 'For a person who has awakened to the Way, the constant light is present before them; what day or night is there?' [The student] asked: 'Why do I not see the Master's light?' The Master said: 'What eye do you intend to use to see it?' The student said: 'Worldly people all use the present eye to see.' The Master snapped his fingers and said: 'How bitter! All sentient beings have their faculties and dust intermingled; from beginningless time they have taken a thief to be their child, and down to the present day they are constantly shackled. If you intend to seek the Buddha Way using the seeing of the eye and the discrimination of the manovijñāna, that is to turn your back on the original mind and wander following thoughts. Such a person is separated though face to face.'