緇門警訓 9.44

9.44

The Master said: 'This old monk did not come here for fame or gain; I must find a true person. I cannot indulge your rights and wrongs amidst the green mountains and white clouds. In a future life, after casting off this retribution body, you will not even have grass to eat! How many golden-haired lions, upon being asked, bray like donkeys and roar like horses? Everyone! When this old monk was on itinerant pilgrimage, arriving in various regions, the assembly was usually a thousand, or at least seven or five hundred. Living among them through winter and summer, I never realized I had spent the time in vain. I cooked rice in Guishan's assembly for seven years, and served as chief of firewood in Dongshan's assembly for three years. Wherever the heavy labor was, I went first. It was solely to resolve my own time; what did it have to do with others? Like all buddhas and bodhisattvas, they all endured toil and hardship, taking no account of kalpas, relinquishing the precious throne of a cakravartin king, as well as head, eyes, marrow, brain, and all beloved things, along with innumerable realms, cities, wives, and children. Only thus did they first gain the name of Buddha. What have you ācāryas ever relinquished? What toil and hardship have you ever accomplished? Yet you immediately say: "I understand the supramundane Dharma!" You do not even understand mundane phenomena; the slightest condition appears before you, and you immediately raise your eyebrows and glare, unable to stomach it—what liberation teachings are you talking about? Sitting upon the long benches without moving your ten fingers, you consume the donations of faithful donors, close your eyes and mouth, and immediately say: "I practice the discipline and cultivate the Way, evoking fruits; thus I deserve to consume this." You are merely deceiving yourselves! When Upādhyāya Baizhang established halls and dwellings, he only wanted people who could manage affairs. What affairs have you ācāryas managed? Among them, there are those who without moving body or hands consume ten thousand taels of gold a day. If one is truly able to consume it, how could one hold such views? Could you have emerged from your mother's womb like this? Only when you understand mundane phenomena is it called supramundane Dharma. If you do not even understand mundane phenomena, how much less the Buddhadharma! Take the entire great canon of teachings: it is all the secret of the Tathāgata proclaimed by the golden mouth; yet when recited from your mouths, it all turns into the words of demons. How could this be understanding? Why is it not understood? If it were understood, Bodhidharma would not have come from the West. But before Bodhidharma had come to this land, was there Buddhadharma or not? Yet how could you say there was none? For example, a person has a jewel that falls into the mud; through arduous kalpas of searching, he cannot find it. Then someone who well knows where the jewel lies points straight to the jewel in the mud to show the person who lost it. As soon as the person who lost the jewel sees it, he recognizes: "This is my original possession!" There is completely no gain or loss. Bodhidharma's coming from the West was also just like this. Could it be that only this old monk is a kalyāṇamitra? All sentient beings throughout the earth are kalyāṇamitras; it is only that their perception and awareness are not yet clear. You must not say they have none. If you say they have it, would you be willing to bow to the crawling creatures as Buddhas? For example, a bright pearl falls into the mud; without encountering that person, how could there be a time of emergence? Having such sentient beings, they are comparable to insentient things, just like inert objects. Now that you are beneath the three robes, you must intimately approach kalyāṇamitras. It already took cultivation over several lifetimes to attain this; being so, you must not fall back into the six destinies of saṃsāra! If one is a person who has attained mastery, what is there to discuss? Boiling cauldrons, fiery coals, mountains of knives, and forests of swords—in the midst of the four forms of birth and six destinies, it is like eating delicious food. But if you have not attained such facility, you will genuinely receive this retribution. Once the human body is lost, to seek to be like you are today is not one in ten thousand! Do not claim to have attained what you have not attained, claim to have realized what you have not realized, or claim to have heard what you have not heard, deceiving and fooling yourselves, losing time and dragging out the days in vain. In turn, this only weighs down your burden of ignorance. You might as well be a layperson, following conditions as you may to pass the time; then you would have no such karmic debt. Now, being śramaṇas, every day there is karmic debt. What karmic debt is there? What you tread upon is the king's land; what you wear is the faithful donors' clothing; what you eat is the faithful donors' food; and your flesh and bones are the bodies of your parents. If you do not understand, how will you repay them? Therefore I say there is karmic debt. Even with this old monk, it cannot be said I am one who has fully understood; casting off this retribution body, I will go according to karma—who can say for certain? Only a Buddha and a Buddha can know it.'
At the time, a monk asked: 'Without relying on words and phrases, how does one know?'
The Master said: 'Relying on words and phrases, you still do not know.'
The monk had no words and made prostrations.