緇門警訓 8.96

8.96

I write respectfully: Lately I heard that with water-jar and staff you responded to affinity at Touzi; from the four quarters people converge upon your virtue, harmonious in their reverent reception, without any discord. Thus the joy at their shared style may well be known. Having humbly received your letter, in which you address me as a Dharma relative, I find it truly difficult to bear such an honor. I do not yet know whose Dharma the Chan master actually inherited. If you are of the direct lineage of Fenyang and the orthodox school of Linji, what good fortune could surpass this? From the past, our former ancestral masters each had their esoteric transmission of the essential purport to distinguish the true from the false, by which they tested people; it was an seal held behind the elbow. The Buddhas of the three periods, the ancestral masters of the six generations, the myriad teeming phenomena, sentient and insentient, are all firmly imprinted with the single seal of the ocean-imprint samādhi; pervading the heavens and wrapping the earth, there is not the slightest leak. Handed down from generation to generation since Chan Master Baizhang Dazhi, it reached Fenyang, who possessed three kinds of lion-phrases: first, 'surpassing the tradition with distinct vision'; second, 'walking together with brows aligned'; and third, 'echo and sound heard from afar.' If one surpasses the tradition with distinct vision, having insight that exceeds that of the master, only then does one become an authentic seedling. If one walks together with brows aligned, reducing the master's virtue by half, one is unworthy of receiving the transmission. If it is an ungenuine echo, a vulgar pack of foxes and wolves, how could such alien sorts be distinguished? Ciming transmitted it, and subsequently said: 'Holding heaven and earth in the palm of my hand, the thousand distinctions are all illuminated in one.' Yangqi transmitted it, using the vajra hoop and the spiny chestnut burr to test the true and the false. Mount Cakravāḍa may be penetrated, but the vajra hoop cannot be penetrated; the water of the great ocean may be swallowed, but the spiny chestnut burr cannot be swallowed. If one can swallow a single burr, swallowing hundreds of thousands of myriads of millions of burrs is unobstructed; if one can penetrate a single hoop, penetrating hundreds of thousands of myriads of millions of hoops is unobstructed. From Yangqi it was transmitted to the master's grandfather Baiyun Duan; the master's grandfather transmitted it to my late master of Wuzu; and the late master transmitted it to me, the newly ordained. It has been handed down from generation to generation. When it comes to investigating and discerning the false and the true, one must be exceptionally thorough, lest one corrupt the ancestral vehicle and mislead later students. Since receiving the late master's seal of approval, I have held the handle of great peace and, relying on the decree, fully presented it: fitting together whether in brightness or darkness, regarding high and low with a single glance, the myriad classes are all revealed together, and the false and the true become entirely clear. I dare not act rashly. Therefore, the thousands of distinctions and ten thousand differences of confounding public cases are not beyond the vajra hoop and the spiny chestnut burr, which encompass them all at once. If you can swallow one burr and penetrate one hoop, then hundreds of thousands of myriads of millions of burrs and hoops will all be unobstructed. Once unobstructed, I await an opportunity to meet in person and speak intimately, to examine and compare them; if they accord without error, it will be my great fortune. If not, I dare not comply with your command. Respectfully conveying this, I humbly hope you will examine it. No more is said.