景德傳燈錄 1.8

1.8

His August Majesty, serving as the external protector of the Buddha Dharma, commended the monk's diligent labor. Harboring deep prudence and thinking to make it endure for long, he thereupon decreed that your subject Yang Yi, Hanlin Academician, Left Policy Adviser, and Drafter; your subject Li Wei, Vice Director in the Ministry of War and Drafter; your subject Wang Shu, Assistant Director of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices; and others should jointly edit and prune it, causing it to be decided and established. We, your subjects, are ignorant of the tenets of the three trainings, confused about the directions of the five natures, lack the translating ability of Linchuan, and are unacquainted with the essentials of speech and silence in Vaiśālī. Having respectfully received the stern command, we dared not obstinately decline. Secretly applying ourselves to investigation, we had no leisure to rest. Examining the intention of his compilation, it takes true emptiness as its foundation, intending to narrate the causes of ancient sages entering the Way and to mark the teachings of past figures that accorded with the principle. The encounter of faculties and conditions struck mutually, like arrow-points meeting; the treasury of wisdom emitted light, like horses spurred by the shadow of the whip. It guides later students and widely proclaims the profound path. Yet where it was gathered and cited, much dregs remained, though the silk manuscripts could be investigated. When great beings gave instruction to disciples, expounding with a single voice, all sentient beings listened in awe, attested to by a thousand sages; being useful for general illustration, taking a small portion is sufficient. If one were to add further embellishment, the original aim would be lost: it would not be the distinct languages of China and India, but rather close to faulty engraving that ruins the gem. Such matters were all kept as they originally were. Furthermore, when matters call for factual recording, it must depend on skillful narration; for words to travel far, they cannot be without literary grace. Where circumstances were recorded with thread-like, detailed traces, or where phrases were tangled and messy, or expressions vulgar and crude, they were all edited and pruned to weave them together. As for the dialogues of Confucian ministers and laymen, and the clarification of their noble ranks and family names, where years and eras showed discrepancies or differed from historical records, they were all deleted to ensure reliability. Unless they opened the profound interest of dropping the needle, dashed with the swift faculty of flashing lightning, revealed the wondrously bright true mind, or ancestral teachings on the deep principle of suffering and emptiness, how could they accord with the metaphor of transmitting the lamp and apply the efficacy of scraping away cataracts? If one merely relates the omens of resonances and exclusively narrates the tracks of pilgrimage travels, these have already been noted in monastic histories, so what use are they for Chan expositions? We merely preserved the names of lineages, hoping to record the spontaneity of master-disciple transmission. However, in what the old record contained, coarse things were sometimes gathered while the refined were omitted; since separate collections survive, we should seek the texts to supply what is missing. We gathered them generally and appended additions accordingly. As for prefaces and treatises that were perhaps not compositions of the ancient worthies, or inserted in the compilation merely to add padding (the two characters xuan-niang come from the collected works of Duke Zhang of Yan in the Tang, meaning redundant and verbose), we also discriminated and rejected many of them. Only now, after a full year, have we brought this work to completion. In our dispositions and knowledge, we, your subjects, feel ashamed before profound and complex matters; in our learning, we are humbled by our superficial browsing. Our natural capacity is inherently shallow, and our literary strength has nothing to spare. The wondrous Way lies in persons: though we have hollowed our hearts for long, the profound words transcend the world, and facing the wall was naturally our predominant state. Improperly receiving this personal selection, we have achieved no effect of elucidating the teaching. Having succeeded in completing the compilation, we now respectfully present it for your leisure hours. We cannot match the imperial mind, and only vainly soil your sage perusal. Respectfully presented.