緇門警訓 3.12

3.12

The Son of Heaven of the Chongning era bestowed upon Mazu's stupa the designation 'Ciying' and the posthumous title 'Zuyin', ordaining one monk annually to maintain the incense and fire. The venerable abbot Fushen built the Celestial Script Pavilion behind the Patriarch's Hall, using the space beneath the pavilion as a hall, and named it 'Selecting Buddhas'. He sent his disciple to request a record from me. I declined three times, but his requests grew even more resolute. I said to him: 'When the ancients spoke of "selecting Buddhas and passing the examination," it was merely a figure of speech. You have named the hall with it, and now I am to record it—is that not improper?' Pitying your diligence, I casually compose this record for you. Now, 'selection' means choosing and picking: there is rejecting and taking, superior and inferior. Applying it to the civil service examinations, it is used for human talents; this was the instrument by which the former kings spurred the world and sharpened the dull, not the means by which Buddhas are selected. Supposing that Buddhas could be selected, would one take the six faculties? Would one take the six sense-objects? Would one take the six consciousnesses? If one takes the three times six, then all ordinary beings can become Buddhas. If one rejects the three times six, who will cultivate and realize the immeasurable Buddhadharma? Does one take the four truths, the six perfections, the seven factors of awakening, the eightfold noble path, the nine meditative absorptions, the ten fearlessnesses, down to the eighteen unshared dharmas and the thirty-seven auxiliaries to awakening? If one takes them, then there is dharma. Does one reject the four truths, the six perfections, down to the thirty-seven auxiliaries to awakening? If one rejects them, then there is no dharma. Taking and rejecting, existing and non-existing—subtly, they are like a thread remaining in the mind; suddenly, they are like dust entering the chest. In the Sūtra Piṭaka, these are called the two obstacles, or the four illnesses, or the provisional teachings, or conceptual proliferation, or the pervasive conceptualization of false views, or the subtle flowing streams. Taking is not Buddha; rejecting is not Buddha; neither rejecting nor taking is also not Buddha. Can a Buddha truly be selected? He said: 'What you discuss, sir, is the School of Characteristics; what our Patriarch discussed is the Chan School. All who join our selection merely empty their minds. When a disciple approaches the hall with an inquiry, the lineage master sits squarely and replies: sometimes showing him the profound essence; sometimes showing him selection and appraisal; sometimes showing him the samādhi of the Dharma-mirror; sometimes showing him the conditions of the eye of the Way; sometimes showing him the upward path; sometimes showing him the final word; sometimes confronting him directly; sometimes with plain simplicity; sometimes raising an eyebrow or blinking an eye; sometimes lifting the whisk or striking the seat; sometimes drawing a circle; sometimes making a single stroke; sometimes clapping hands; sometimes dancing. Whoever tallies with our dynamic knows that his mind is empty. Knowing that his mind is empty, then a Buddha can indeed be selected.' I said: 'The Bhagavat held up a flower and Kāśyapa smiled; the treasury of the true dharma eye was merely like this. Why are the indications of later lineage masters so excessively numerous? I fear that the teaching of the Śākya clan will decline from this.' Shen is a man of Hedong: content with coarse grain and enduring hardship, he long traveled with Zhenjing of Guanxi; solitary, unbending, and preeminent, he will surely be able to broaden his teaching. For the teaching of the Śākya clan is to wither away so as to leave behind the physical form, and to be serene so as to turn thoughts to ash. Its secret practices of precepts and concentration cannot be spied upon by ghosts and spirits; its wondrous applications of compassion are shared and revered by the hidden and the manifest alike. Responding only when pressed, our assembly would lose its companions; speaking only when having no choice, the six assemblies would lose their boundaries. The changes of life and death are what people dread; if I have never had life, how can there be death? What then is there to dread? Realms of benefit and harm are what people choose between; if I have never had benefit, how can there be harm? Why then choose between them? In this way, without emptying the outside, the inside is naturally empty; without emptying the realm, the mind is naturally empty; without emptying phenomena, principle is naturally empty; without emptying characteristics, nature is naturally empty; without emptying emptiness, emptiness is naturally empty. Being empty, it is equal; being equal, it is great; being great, it is complete; being complete, it is wondrous; being wondrous, it is Buddha. Alas! It is with this that I place my hopes in you; do not neglect it!"