大明高僧傳 5.20

5.20

Shi Huiyuan was a son of the Peng family of Meishan. At the age of thirteen, he underwent tonsure and dyeing of robes under the Venerable Zongbian of Yaoshi Cloister. First he went to the lecture hall of Daci; next he studied under Chan Master Hui of Lingyan, where he had a slight entry. It happened that Yuanwu again received an imperial order to reside at Zhaojue, so Yuan went to him. When Yuanwu gave a general sermon citing the case of Layman Pang asking Mazu about not having the myriad dharmas as companions, Yuan suddenly had a sudden awakening and fell down amidst the assembly. The assembly supported him up, and Yuan then said: "I have awakened from a dream!" When it came to the evening informal gathering, Yuan stepped forward and asked: "Clean and naked, without a single thing; starkly poor, without a single coin; the door is broken and the house destroyed. I beg the Master to give relief." Yuanwu said: "Seven treasures and eight gems—take them all at once!" Yuan said: "Disaster does not enter the door of a cautious household." Yuanwu said: "When your dynamic edge does not leave its position, you fall into a sea of poison." Yuan then gave a shout. Yuanwu struck the Chan bench with his staff and said: "Have you had a taste of the stick yet?" Yuan shouted again. Yuanwu gave two shouts in succession. Yuan then bowed. From this time on, his dynamic edge burst forth steeply, with nothing that could withstand it. Emerging into the world, he first resided at Xianxiao on Mount Gaoting. On the fifteenth day of the tenth month in the sixth year of the Qiandao era of the Song, he was decreed to transfer to Lingyin. Ascending the hall, a monk asked: "What is it like when 'this very mind is Buddha'?" He said: "Horn-buns parted on the crown of the head." The monk asked: "What is it like when 'neither mind nor Buddha'?" He said: "Gold rings dangling from the ears." The monk asked: "When it is not mind, not Buddha, and not a thing, how is it then?" He said: "A balding Asura dancing the Zhezhi dance." On the fifteenth day of the second month in the seventh year, he was summoned into the Xuande Hall and granted a seat. Emperor Xiaozong asked: "How can one escape birth and death?" Yuan replied: "If one does not awaken to the Great Way, in the end one can never escape." The Emperor asked: "How does one attain awakening?" Yuan said: "If one investigates the inherent nature, there is no one who does not awaken." The Emperor asked: "What about after awakening?" Yuan said: "Only after awakening does one know that the whole body is manifest before us, completely devoid of the slightest visible mark." The Emperor nodded in agreement. The Emperor also asked: "How about 'this very mind is Buddha'?" Yuan said: "There are no dharmas before our eyes; what does Your Majesty call 'mind'?" The Emperor asked: "What is mind?" Yuan straightened his body, stood with folded hands, and said: "Just this." The Emperor was greatly pleased. On the seventh day of the eighth month in the autumn of the eighth year, he summoned Yuan into the Eastern Pavilion and granted him a seat. The Emperor said: "The other day in a dream I suddenly heard the sound of a bell, and thereupon woke up. I do not know how it is with dream and waking." Yuan said: "Does Your Majesty ask about the dream or ask about waking? If you ask about waking, right now this is precisely sleep-talk. If you ask about the dream, dream and waking are not different—who can be told to distinguish them? A dream is an illusion; knowing illusion, one immediately departs from it. The awakened mind is unmoving; therefore it is said: 'If one can transform things, one is identical to the Tathāgata.'" The Emperor said: "Since dream and illusion are both negated, from what place did the bell sound arise?" Yuan said: "It arose from the place of questioning." The Emperor asked again: "The other day when sitting in this pavilion, I suddenly thought of not having the myriad dharmas as companions and had a certain view." Yuan said: "I would like to hear it." The Emperor said: "The four seas are not too much." Yuan said: "What about 'swallowing all the water of the West River in a single gulp'?" The Emperor said: "It also has never been lacking." Yuan said: "The moment one enters into deliberation, it becomes a superfluous dharma. Even if it were like a severed wheel or a flash of lightning, it would have no bearing whatsoever. Why is that? Because the Dharma is not two; views have no dual views; the mind has no separate mind—just as the sky has no two suns." The Emperor was pleased and bestowed upon him the title Great Master Fohai. In the autumn of the second year, yimei, of the Chunxi era, he instructed the assembly and recited a verse: / "Chunxi, the second year, the leap late autumn, the first day of the ninth month; / Do not stick your head out into noisy places; observe from a cool, detached ground. / Light and darkness do not interfere with each other; both divide the half. / Being of one kind as noble people, who would be told to sell firewood and charcoal? / I say to you: it cannot be disparaged, it cannot be praised; / Its substance is like empty space, without shore or boundary. / Calling to one another, 'Come back, let us return!' / The Shangyuan Festival is definitely the middle of the first month." / In the first month of the following year, he suddenly took slightly ill. As predicted, on the Shangyuan Festival he recited a verse: / "Snapping the steelyard weight, / Turning over the tangled vines. / Standing out ahead of the dynamic function, / Even a crow cannot fly across." / He sat peacefully and passed away. His body was kept for seven days with its color unchanged, and was entombed whole in a stupa.