景德傳燈錄 5.51

5.51

溫州永嘉玄覺禪師者永嘉人也。姓戴氏。丱歲出家遍探三藏。精天台止觀圓妙法門。於四威儀中常冥禪觀。後因左谿朗禪師激勵。與東陽策禪師同詣曹谿。初到振錫携瓶。繞祖三匝。祖曰。夫沙門者具三千威儀八萬細行。大德自何方而來生大我慢。師曰。生死事大無常迅速。祖曰。何不體取無生了無速乎。曰體即無生。了本無速。祖曰。如是如是。于時大眾無不愕然。師方具威儀參禮。須臾告辭。祖曰。返太速乎。師曰。本自非動豈有速耶。祖曰。誰知非動。曰仁者自生分別。祖曰。汝甚得無生之意。曰無生豈有意耶。祖曰。無意誰當分別。曰分別亦非意。祖歎曰。善哉善哉。少留一宿。時謂一宿覺矣。策公乃留師。翌日下山迴溫江。學者輻湊。號真覺大師。著證道歌一首。及禪宗悟修圓旨自淺之深。慶州刺史魏靖。緝而序之成十篇。目為永嘉集並盛行于世。

Zen Master Xuanjue of Yongjia in Wenzhou was a man of Yongjia. His secular surname was Dai. In his youth he went forth from home and explored the Tripiṭaka widely. He mastered the circular, subtle dharma-gate of Tiantai śamatha and vipaśyanā, and in the midst of the four bodily postures he was continually merged in meditative observation. Later, through the encouragement of Zen Master Lang of Zuoxi, he traveled together with Zen Master Ce of Dongyang to Caoxi. When he first arrived, shaking his monk's staff and holding his water jug, he circumambulated the Patriarch three times. The Patriarch said: "Now, a śramaṇa is endowed with the three thousand deportments and the eighty thousand subtle conducts. From where has the venerable elder come, giving rise to such great conceit?" The Master said: "Birth and death is the one great matter; impermanence is swift." The Patriarch said: "Why not embody the unborn and comprehend what is without swiftness?" [Xuanjue] replied: "To embody it is itself unborn; to comprehend it is originally without swiftness." The Patriarch said: "It is so, it is so." At that time, the assembly was filled with astonishment. Only then did the Master adopt proper deportment and pay formal homage. In a short while he announced his departure. The Patriarch said: "Are you not returning too swiftly?" The Master said: "Originally being fundamentally motionless, how could there be swiftness?" The Patriarch said: "Who knows it is motionless?" [Xuanjue] said: "The benevolent one yourself generates conceptual discrimination." The Patriarch said: "You have thoroughly attained the intention of the unborn." [Xuanjue] said: "How could the unborn have any intention?" The Patriarch said: "Without intention, who makes conceptual discrimination?" [Xuanjue] said: "Discrimination is likewise not intention." The Patriarch sighed and said: "Excellent, excellent! Stay for just one night." At the time, he was called 'The One-Night Enlightened One'. Master Ce then detained the Master. The following day he descended the mountain and returned to the Wen River. Students gathered like spokes at a hub. He was styled Great Master Zhenjue. He composed one piece of the *Song of Awakening to the Way* (Zhengdao ge), as well as [a treatise on] the circular purport of awakening and cultivation in the Zen school, proceeding from the shallow to the profound. Wei Jing, governor of Qingzhou, compiled and prefaced it into ten chapters, entitling it the *Yongjia Collection*, and it circulated widely throughout the world.