曆代法寶記 1.8

1.8

唐朝第六祖韶州漕溪能禪師。俗姓盧。范陽人也。隨父宦嶺外居新州。年二十二。來至憑茂山。禮忍大師。初見大師問。汝從何來。答言。從新州來。唯求作佛。忍大師曰。汝新州是㺐獠。能禪師答。身雖是獠。佛性豈異和上。大師深知其能。再欲共語。為眾人在左右。令能隨眾踏碓八箇月。碓聲聲相似。忍大師就碓上密說。直了見性。於夜間潛喚入房。三日三夜共語。了付囑法及袈裟。汝為此世界大師。即令急去。大師自送。過九江驛。看渡大江已却迴歸。諸門徒並不知付法及袈裟與惠能。去三日。大師告諸門徒。汝等散去。吾此間無有佛法。佛法流過嶺南。眾人咸驚。遞相問。嶺南有誰。潞州法如師對曰。惠能在彼。眾皆奔湊。眾中有一四品官將軍。捨官入道。字惠明。久在大師左右。不能契悟。聞大師此言。即當曉夜倍逞奔趨。至大庚嶺上。見能禪師。禪師怕急恐性命不存。乃將所傳法袈裟過與惠明禪師。惠明禪師曰。我本不為袈裟來。忍大師發遣之日。有何言教。願為我說。能禪師具說心法直了見性。惠明師聞法已。合掌頂禮。發遣能禪師急過嶺去。在後大有人來相趁。其惠明禪師。後居象山。所出弟子亦只看淨。能禪師至韶州漕溪。四十餘年開化道俗雲奔。後至景雲二年。命弟子立楷。令新州龍山造塔。至先天元年。問塔成否。答成。其年九月。從漕溪僧立楷智海等問和上。已後誰人得法承後傳信袈裟。和上答。汝莫問。已後難起極盛。我緣此袈裟。幾度合失身命不存。在信大師處三度被偷。在忍大師處三度被偷。乃至吾處六度被偷。我此袈裟女子將去也。更莫問我。汝若欲知得我法者。我滅度後二十年外竪立我宗旨。即是得法人。至先天二年。忽告門徒。吾當大行矣。八月三日夜。奄然坐化。大師春秋七十有六。漕溪溝澗斷流。泉池枯竭。日月無光。林木變白。異香𣱦氳。三日三夜不絕。其年於新州國恩寺迎和上神座。至十一月葬於漕溪。太常寺承韋造碑文。至開元七年。被人磨改刻別造碑。近代報修侍郎宋鼎撰碑文。

The sixth patriarch of the Tang dynasty, Chan Master Neng of Caoxi in Shaozhou, had the secular surname Lu and was a native of Fanyang. Following his father's official posting beyond the [Nan]ling mountains, he lived in Xinzhou. At the age of twenty-two, he came to Mount Pingmao to pay homage to Master Ren. Upon their first meeting, the Master asked, 'Where have you come from?' He answered, 'I come from Xinzhou. I seek only to become a Buddha.' Master Ren said, 'You are an aboriginal barbarian from Xinzhou.' Chan Master Neng replied, 'Although my body is that of a barbarian, how could my Buddha-nature differ from yours, Reverend?' The Master deeply recognized his ability. Wishing to speak with him again, but because many people were all around, he ordered Neng to tread the pestle along with the community for eight months. The sound of his pestle-strikes was uniform. Master Ren went to the pestle and secretly spoke to him of directly and completely seeing the nature. In the night, he summoned him into his room in secret, and they spoke together for three days and three nights. Having finished, he entrusted the Dharma and the kāṣāya to him, saying: 'You are the great master of this world.' He then ordered him to leave swiftly. The Master personally saw him off past the Jiujiang postal relay station, watched him cross the great river, and only then returned. None of the disciples knew that the Dharma and the kāṣāya had been transmitted to Huineng. Three days after his departure, the Master announced to all the disciples: 'You may disperse. There is no Buddha-dharma here with me; the Buddha-dharma has flowed across the southern mountains.' Everyone was astonished, and they asked one another: 'Who is there in Lingnan?' Master Faru of Luzhou replied: 'Huineng is there.' The crowd all rushed [in pursuit]. Among the crowd was a fourth-rank general who had renounced office to enter the Way; his courtesy name was Huiming. Having been in the Master's presence for a long time, he had not been able to tally with awakening. Hearing these words of the Master, he then doubled his pace through morning and night and rushed ahead, reaching the top of Mount Dayuling, where he saw Chan Master Neng. Master [Neng], in fear and urgency, worried that his life would not be spared, and so he handed the transmitted kāṣāya of the Dharma to Chan Master Huiming. Chan Master Huiming said, 'I have not come for the kāṣāya in the first place. On the day Master Ren sent you away, what words of instruction did he give? Please explain them for me.' Chan Master Neng spoke fully of the mind-dharma of directly and completely seeing the nature. Having heard the Dharma, Master Huiming joined his palms, bowed his head in homage, and urged Chan Master Neng to quickly cross the mountains, saying: 'Behind me there are many people coming in pursuit.' That Chan Master Huiming later lived on Mount Xiang; the disciples he produced only practiced contemplating purity. Chan Master Neng reached Caoxi in Shaozhou, where for more than forty years he opened and transformed the monastics and laity, who gathered like clouds. Later, in the second year of the Jingyun era, he instructed his disciple Likai to have a stūpa built on Mount Long in Xinzhou. When the first year of the Xiantian era arrived, he asked whether the stūpa was completed. [Likai] replied that it was finished. In the ninth month of that year, the monks Likai, Zhihai, and others from Caoxi asked the Reverend: 'In the future, who will attain the Dharma, succeed you, and transmit the robe of verification?' The Reverend answered: 'Do not ask. In the future, calamities will arise with great ferocity. On account of this kāṣāya, on how many occasions would I have lost my life? In Master Xin's presence it was stolen three times; in Master Ren's presence it was stolen three times; and even in my presence it has been stolen six times. This kāṣāya of mine will be taken away by a woman. Do not ask me again! If you wish to know who attains my Dharma: anyone who establishes my lineage more than twenty years after my decease is the person who has attained the Dharma.' In the second year of the Xiantian era, he suddenly told his disciples, 'I must embark on the great journey.' On the night of the third day of the eighth month, he quietly entered sitting transformation. The Master's worldly age was seventy-six. The gullies and streams of Caoxi stopped flowing, the spring ponds dried up, the sun and moon lost their light, the forest trees turned white, and an extraordinary fragrance billowed, not ceasing for three days and three nights. In that year, they received the Reverend's sacred chair at Guo'en Temple in Xinzhou, and in the eleventh month buried him at Caoxi. Wei, Assistant of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, composed the stele inscription. In the seventh year of the Kaiyuan era, it was ground down and altered by someone who carved a different stele; in recent times, Vice Minister Song Ding of the Department of Public Works composed a stele inscription.