緇門警訓 5.14

5.14

People in the world never fail to find joy in leisure and relaxation, and together they strive toward it. When I ask them for their reason in reverse, they say: "In the past, we were continually caught up in honour and disgrace, right and wrong, day after day rushing back and forth among affairs. Our minds and wills were fatigued, and our bodies were worn out, to the point that [these anxieties] tied themselves into our feelings and thoughts and joined in our dreams. Thinking quietly upon it, how much time is there in human life? Not finding a single day of peace, even with wealth and status, what benefit is there? From this, we abandoned everything, wishing to sing while walking, to sit in oblivion, and to gaze upon the blue sky and white clouds, so as to wander freely beyond the reach of external things." Or there are those who avoid the admonitions of fathers and teachers, abhor the toils of livelihood and circumstance, and dread making a living as if fleeing from flood or fire, insisting on severing themselves from the dust and distancing themselves from the mundane world to indulge in their leisure. I say: busyness indeed wears out the body and taxes one's thoughts; yet leisure merely wastes the daylight sitting idly by—how does that benefit the truth? Both are simply deluded emotions of craving and aversion. Therefore, the sage has the teaching that the two aspects of motion and stillness are clearly non-arising. There is precisely no need to abhor this busyness while craving that leisure. I shall speak plainly: if a person wishes to learn the way of entering the worldly sphere, if they do not attend to diligent toil, then whether an affair is noble or base, there is no way for it to succeed. However, if one realizes the falseness of the worldly sphere and wishes to investigate the transcendent path of the sages, if one does not forget to eat and forgo sleep, then whether one's faculties are sharp or dull, from what source could one attain it? Therefore, the Great Being of the Snowy Mountains sacrificed bodies and lives as numerous as specks of dust, and served kalyāṇamitras like the sands of the Gaṅgā, amassing kalpas down to the present through experiencing all kinds of hardships—all to show later students that the Way is not easily heard. Thus, entering the worldly sphere, one is loyal to the sovereign and filial to parents, fulfilling all duty; one cannot but be busy. Transcending the worldly sphere, one draws near to teachers and selects friends, inquiring in the morning and knocking [at their doors] in the evening to fulfill the Way; one also cannot but be busy. Having fulfilled duty and also fulfilled the Way, one will see that one's substance is unmoving like Mount Tai, and one's mind is unconditioned like great empty space—how could a single word "leisure" be mentioned in the same breath? Or if entering the world one cannot fulfill duty, and transcending the world one cannot fulfill the Way, solely striving to take peaceful leisure and undisturbed ease as one's business, refusing to submit to toil even for an instant—for this reason the sage rebuked such as "people without shame." How could any person of understanding bear to incur this lack of shame, and once more indulge in leisure within the realm of laxity? Therefore, I have written this as an admonition to those who cast themselves into leisure.