緇門警訓 5.8

5.8

The style of the Buddhas and ancestors is about to fall to the ground;
Speaking of it makes one's heart and gall break to pieces.
Sustaining it rested entirely upon my descendants,
Yet unexpectedly the descendants were the first to commit corruptions.
In swarms they run north and rush south,
Obscuring the true cause to manage miscellaneous affairs.
Eyes filled with wind and dust, faces covered with grime,
Karmic consciousness is vast and adrift, without a fundamental basis.
Even though they lodge in the saṅgha hall,
Only when the wooden sounding board strikes do they return to their bedding places.
Huddling together in their quarters to stir up right and wrong,
Pulling up their feet on the cushion, they immediately doze off.
Dense clouds of ignorance gather, dimming the heaven of their nature;
Flint-sparks collide and burn, their minds boiling like a cauldron.
Temporarily still, they stagnate in light pliancy;
Completely darkened, they fall into the unrecorded state.
Unwilling to practice the Pure Rules of Baizhang,
They diligently expound the meanings of externalist scriptures.
Treating cause and effect as plain and ordinary,
With offense and blessing clearly evident, they are completely without fear.
Or they move to a single couch in a single room,
Negligence stemming wholly from body, speech, and mind.
The tiles above their heads, the bricks beneath their feet,
The robes on their bodies, the tastes in their mouths—
Each and every one comes from the gifts of families of faithful dānapatis.
If the work of the Path is not accomplished, how can they digest them?
Touching their hearts, how few know shame!
Today three, tomorrow four—
Time spent in idle places is entirely thrown away.
One day old age and sickness come to seek them out;
Old Man Yama presses with summons, and the tally of death arrives.
The karma created in the past is not forgotten;
From this they fall into the three wretched destinies and seven paths.
Once the kāṣāya is lost, it is difficult to regain;
Scales, shells, and feathers are easy to put on.
Look at those who studied the Path in ancient times:
They utterly forgot the human world, making light of fame and profit.
Boiling Solomon's seal, roasting purple taros,
A single ball of rice, a single vessel of water,
To remedy their withered bodies and barely maintain breath.
Though rocks rotted and pines withered, they were entirely oblivious;
Purifying the mind, they made plans for lifetimes to come.
Pure leisure beyond material things is of supreme flavour;
How could gold in the world be worthy of value?
In the field of the empty kalpa, Buddha-flowers bloom;
Fragrant wind breaks open the nose born of one's mother.
Graduating and returning from the field for selecting Buddhas,
One roams at will in the saṅghārāma of complete enlightenment.
Tonight, on the occasion of the binding of the retreat, during informal instruction,
Unawares, what I said became this verse.