景德傳燈錄 10.40

10.40

Chan Master Yiduan of the Lower Hall of Xiangyan in Dengzhou instructed the assembly, saying: 'Brothers, since neither of us has completed the matter, what business is there to deliberate together? In three or five days I shall depart. Nowadays, students must resolve what is of the present; do not covet that those transcendental people have nothing to do. Brothers, even if you study various differential paths of meaning, in the end they cannot substitute for your own insight. You must apply effort at last to attain it. Merely memorising others' ingenious phrases will only make you all the more disturbed and confused. If you wish to accord with it, simply be entirely deferential, letting not the slightest hair remain, directly resembling empty space—only then will you have a small share of it. For empty space has no locks, no walls, no form, and no mental eye.' A monk asked: 'How was it when the ancients met each other?' The master said: 'This old monk has never seen those ancients.' The monk said: 'At the place where the lifeblood of the present is unbroken, how should one look up to and admire it?' The master said: 'What is there to look up to and admire?' A monk asked, saying: 'I am not asking about idle matters; please, Upādhyāya, answer.' The master said: 'What more are you seeking from me?' The monk said: 'It is not an idle matter.' The master said: 'You tell me, then.' The master also said: 'Brothers, the Buddha is dust, and the Dharma is dust as well. Seeking after them all day long, what rest is there? Just do not cling with sentiment at all times; let sentiment not cling to things. There is no good to be grasped, and no evil to be abandoned. Do not let yourself be enveloped by them; only this is the place of practice.' A monk said: 'I once took leave of a veteran master who instructed me, saying: "When you go, associate with good companions and adhere to friends of the Way." I wonder what the veteran master's meaning was?' Just as the monk was bowing, the master said: 'Make your bows as you please, but do not mistake a slave for the master.' A monk asked: 'What is directly cutting through to the root source?' The master threw down his staff and entered the abbot's quarters. One day the master said to the assembly: 'Speech is slander; silence is deception. Beyond silence and speech, there is a road. This old monk's mouth is narrow; I cannot explain it to you.' Thereupon he stepped down from the hall. A monk asked: 'What about the single phrase?' The master said: 'Here, there is not even a single phrase.' A monk asked: 'Why is the primary cause without concern?' The master said: 'I have never lingered.' He also said: 'Even if layer upon layer is peeled clean and nothing remains, provisional establishment is still an expedient to receive people. If it comes to the matter of that other side, it has no validity whatsoever.'