緇門警訓 7.28

7.28

In observing water, do not observe the water of a foul pool: / In the water of a foul pool, fish and turtles are small and mean. / In climbing mountains, do not climb rolling foothills: / On rolling foothills, grass and trees are sparse. / In observing water, one must observe the vastness of the azure ocean; / In climbing mountains, one must climb the heights of Mount Tai. / What one gains will not be shallow, what one sees will be lofty; / When effort is exhausted, it is not in vain. / In the South, fortunately, there is a ground for electing buddhas; / Go there and thoroughly explore the wondrous purport! / In future years, when your vessel is formed and you restore the declining order, / You will not fail the resolve of a man who left home. / Great hero, cease your wavering! / How could you ruin your life's plan for empty fame? / In a hundred years, when taking one's measure, one feels there is not much time; / Do not let time covertly add to your years. / Chengdu is moreover a city of splendour and bustle, / Where people linger only through being beguiled by flowers and wine. / Fortunately, my master is one who has left home; / Would you willingly follow petty men and be buried together with them? / Fortunately, my master possesses an ambition like the rainbow; / Why hesitate and wallow in the mud and water? / Have you not seen that a boat-swallowing fish does not hide in shallow streams, / And a tree of many arm-spans does not grow on barren hills? / When the great roc spreads its wings ninety thousand leagues, / How can it be likened to the gulls flying along the spring shore? / How much better to swiftly ride a thousand-league steed / And not learn from the wren clinging to a single branch! / Even if you could expound a thousand sutras and treatises, / You would still fall into the secondary mechanism of the Chan house. / The white clouds are ever in love with the high terrace; / Let them not cover the morning cage without opening for a moment! / To soothe the common people's hope for copious rain, / Casually step forth from the mountains as before. / And have you not seen: / In Mount Jing there is a jade named Qiongyao; / Before meeting a skilled artisan, it lay among weeds and briars. / Had it not left Jing and Chu at that time, / How could its value have doubled to rival a city's worth?