緇門警訓 7.14

7.14

The master cited Upādhyāya Baizhang instructing the assembly: 'You troop of youngsters have never known how to study the sūtras, vinaya, and śāstras. You also entered the assembly to practice Chan inquiry, yet you do not understand Chan either. On the thirtieth day of the twelfth month, how will you settle your accounts?' The master said: 'Clearly so! Venerable elders, the time of the sages is distant, and people's minds are flimsy. Looking at today's monasteries, it is even more unbearable. Wherever you go, followers gather by the three hundreds and five hundreds, clamorous and bustling. Merely by having lavish food and drink and warm dormitories, they consider it flourishing teaching. Among them, how many people can there be who are diligently devoted to the Way? Even if there are five or ten, running up and down, half-ripe and half-raw, all saying, "I have understood!" Each and every one claims to hold the jewel of the luminous serpent; who is willing to acknowledge their error? But when it comes to being pressed and tested, truly there is not one in ten thousand. How bitter! How bitter! This is what is called: "The prajñā groves wither year by year; the weeds of ignorance grow year by year." Above all, youngsters of the present day, as soon as they enter the assembly, sit upright with folded hands and receive the offerings of others. Everywhere they go, they do not sort a single stalk of greens; they do not carry a single bundle of firewood. Their ten fingers do not touch water; a hundred affairs never concern their minds. Although they enjoy a period of pleasure, how can they avoid burdening their bodies in the three miserable destinies? Do you not see it said in the teaching: "Better to wrap hot iron around the body than to receive the clothing of a person of faithful mind; better to pour molten copper into the mouth than to receive the food of a person of faithful mind"? If you elders are truly accomplished, even if the great earth were turned into yellow gold and the long rivers churned into butter-curd to make offerings to you, it would not be beyond your share. But if you are not yet so, even down to a drop of water or an inch of thread, you will have to wear fur and horns, pull the plow and drag the harrow to repay them before you are done! Again, do you not see that the Patriarch said: "If you enter the Way without comprehending the principle, you will return in body to repay the offerings of faith. The elder lived to eighty-one, and the tree bore no fungus"? It is never in vain! Venerable elders, time is to be treasured; time waits for no one. Do not wait until one day the light of your eyes falls to the ground, with not a single basketful of effort in the field of the black-robed order, to sink into the pain of a hundred punishments within the Iron Enclosure! Do not say I did not warn you. Take care!'