緇門警訓 2.8

2.8

Investigating Chan and studying the Way have several manners; / The essential point is that the person must be able to choose the highest. / Do not merely forget the physical form and deaden the mind; / This illness is hardest to cure, being the most profound. / One must directly sit and investigate, probing to the source; / This Way has been transmitted through past and present across the world. / Sit upright and solemn like Mount Tai; / Majestic and imposing, do not just guard empty leisure. / One must directly pick up the sharpness of the hair-severing blade, / Desiring to lay bare the primary meaning brought from the West. / Stare wide with your eyes and twitch up your brows; / Repeatedly look at him: just who is he? / Just like catching a thief, one must see the loot; / Do not fear that the thief has hidden in the depths. / The wise apprehend him in the space of a kṣaṇa; / The unwise, year after year, never catch sight of his shadow. / Deeply I lament those sitting motionless, always like the dead; / For a thousand or ten thousand years they remain just like this. / If one takes such as this to be the Chan school, / The twirling of the flower and subtle smile would destroy the family tradition! / Sitting under the Black Mountain, soaked in dead water; / Across the vast, boundless earth, how can this be tolerated? / If you are a fellow with iron eyes and bronze pupils, / Grasping your own chest you can judge for yourself. / You must directly advance, taking awakening as the goal, / Letting out a single roar like a lion's cub! / Have you not seen the simile of polishing a brick to make a mirror? It has its reason: / When the cart does not move, it depends on beating the ox. / And have you not seen the clear water before the cliff, ten thousand fathoms deep and pure? / Sunk in stillness and silence, utterly soundless. / One day when fish and dragons come to churn it up, / Surging with billows and leaping with waves, it is truly worthy of respect! / Just like sitting in quietude without exerting effort: / In what year will you pass the examination and awaken to the emptiness of mind? / Swiftly set to work and aim your gaze high; / Be sure to bring it to completion in this very lifetime! / If you remain silently indulgent like a fool, / I know you do not understand how to apply your effort. / Shake up your spirits and look attentively; / Without form and without shadow, awakening is not difficult. / This is applying the mind with complete sincerity; / Courageous fellows must remember this! / Never listen to those who say there is no need to investigate; / The ancient sages diligently took this as their compass. / Although it is the old pavilion and idle land of the past, / Have you won it back even once? / If you wish to know the Immovable Honored One of seated meditation: / Where the wind blows, the grasses bend—all are discoursed upon. / Now the four seas are as clear as a mirror; / Every single thing is within my hearing. / Long, short, square, or round are only known to oneself; / From the beginning, not a single hair has ever shifted. / If you ask what seated meditation accomplishes: / The sun rises in the east, and at night sets in the west.