禪林寶訓 4.20

4.20

Xinwen said: "The Way of a special transmission outside the teachings is most simple and most essential; fundamentally there was no other talk. The predecessors practiced it without doubt and preserved it without change. During the Tianxi era, Xuedou, using his eloquent and erudite talent, indulging fine conceits, playing tricks, and seeking novelty and carving ingenuity, followed Fenyang in making verse commentaries on ancient cases, enticing the learners of the time. The style of the lineage underwent a change from this. By the Xuanhe and Zhenghe eras, Yuanwu again brought forth his own ideas, separating them to make the Blue Cliff Record. At that time, men of antiquity-transcending purity and perfection, such as Master Ning, Sixin, Lingyuan, and Fojian, were all unable to turn back his discourse. Thereupon, newly advanced youngsters treasured his words, chanting them morning and practicing them evening, calling them the ultimate learning, with none realizing their error. How painful! The mental methods of learners have been ruined. In the early Shaoxing era, Fori entered Min and saw learners pulled along without returning, rushing by day and galloping by month, steeped into an abuse. He immediately shattered the printing blocks and refuted his discourse, going so far as to dispel delusion, rescue the drowning, prune complexity, weed out entanglement, destroy the heterodox, and manifest the orthodox, specially rousing them. The patch-robed monks came to know a little of its error and no longer admired it. Yet had it not been for Fori's lofty brilliance, far-reaching vision, and riding the power of vows of compassion to rescue the abuses of the final age of the Dharma, the monastic groves would have had great cause for dread." (Letter to Zhang Zishao)