景德傳燈錄 17.9

17.9

Chan Master Judun of Mount Longya in Hunan was a native of Nancheng in Fuzhou. His family name was Guo. At age fourteen, he left home at Mantian Temple in Jizhou. Later he went to Mount Song to receive the precepts. He then took his monk’s staff and travelled among the various Chan assemblies. When calling on the Upādhyāya Cuiwei, he asked, “Your student has been at your seat of Dharma for more than a month. Every day when the Upādhyāya ascends the hall, I do not receive a single word of Dharma instruction. What is the intention in this?” Cuiwei said, “What are you disliking?” (A monk quoted this previous exchange to ask Dongshan. Dongshan said, “How could the ācārya blame this old monk?” Fayan said otherwise, “The ancestral master has arrived.” Qi of Dongchan said, “Is there intimacy or estrangement in the words of these three venerable elders? If there is, which one is intimate? If there is no intimacy or estrangement, where is their eye?”) He also visited Deshan and asked, “From afar I heard of Deshan’s single phrase of Buddha-Dharma, yet now that I have arrived, I have never seen the Upādhyāya speak a single phrase of Buddha-Dharma.” Deshan said, “What are you disliking?” The Master did not accept this, and so he went to Dongshan and asked him as before. Dongshan said, “How could you blame this old monk?” The Master again brought up the key words from Deshan, and thereby realized his own fault. Thereupon he stayed at Dongshan, joining the assembly in asking for instruction. One day he asked, “What is the ancestral master’s intention?” Dongshan said, “Wait until the waters of the Dong stream flow backward, and then I will tell you.” From this, the Master began to awaken to its purport. He then hitched up his robes and stayed for eight years. He accepted the invitation of the Ma family of Hunan to reside at Miaoji Chan Cloister on Mount Longya, with the title Great Master Zhengkong. He had over five hundred followers, and no seat was left empty in his Dharma hall. Ascending the hall, he instructed the assembly, saying: “Those who study Chan must pass beyond the ancestral masters and Buddhas before they attain it. Upādhyāya Xinfeng said, ‘Only when the ancestral teachings and Buddha teachings resemble sworn enemies does one begin to have a portion of study.’ If you cannot pass beyond the ancestral masters and Buddhas, you will be deceived by the ancestral masters and Buddhas.” At that time a monk asked, “Do the ancestral masters and Buddhas still have the intention to deceive people or not?” The Master said, “Tell me, do rivers and lakes have the intention to obstruct people or not?” He also said, “Although rivers and lakes have no intention to obstruct people, because the people of the time cannot cross them, rivers and lakes turn out to obstruct people; one cannot say that rivers and lakes do not obstruct people. Although the ancestral masters and Buddhas have no intention to deceive people, because the people of the time cannot pass through them, the ancestral masters and Buddhas turn out to deceive people; one cannot say that the ancestral masters and Buddhas do not deceive people. If one can pass beyond the ancestral masters and Buddhas, this person surpasses the ancestral masters and Buddhas. Only then has one embodied the intention of the ancestral masters and Buddhas, and just then is one the same as the ancients of the transcendental. If one has not yet passed through, merely studying the Buddhas and studying the ancestral masters, then in ten thousand kalpas there will be no time of attainment.” The monk also asked, “How can one avoid being deceived by the ancestral masters and Buddhas?” The Master said, “You must simply awaken for yourself.” When the Master was with Cuiwei, he asked, “What is the ancestral master’s intention?” Cuiwei said, “Bring me the meditation board.” The Master then passed the meditation board to him. Cuiwei took it and struck him. The Master said, “If you strike, strike as you will, but essentially there is no ancestral master’s intention.” He also asked Linji, “What is the ancestral master’s intention?” Linji said, “Bring me the sitting cushion.” The Master then passed the cushion to him. Linji took it and struck him. The Master said, “If you strike, strike as you will, but essentially there is no ancestral master’s intention.” Later, a monk asked, “When the Upādhyāya was on pilgrimage, you asked two venerable elders about the ancestral master’s intention. I wonder whether the two venerable elders’ Dharma eyes were clear or not?” The Master said, “As for being clear, they were clear, but essentially there is no ancestral master’s intention.” (Qi of Dongchan said, “In the assembly they say the Buddha-Dharma exists, but there is merely no ancestral master’s intention. If understood in this way, what connection is there? How else would one understand the principle of there being no ancestral master’s intention?”) A monk asked, “What is the Way?” The Master said, “A mind without divergence from others is it.” He also said, “If a person embodies the Way, a mind without divergence from others is truly a person of the Way. If it is words and speeches, then there is no connection. Practitioners of the Way, do you know the person of the Way who has struck home? Throughout the twelve hours of the day, except for wearing clothes and eating food, there is not a hair’s breadth of difference from the minds of others, and no deceitful mind toward others. This one is truly a person of the Way. If you say ‘I have attained, I understand,’ then there is no connection. It is not at all easy.” A monk asked, “What is the meaning of the ancestral master’s coming from the West?” The Master said, “Wait until the stone tortoise can speak, and then I will tell you.” The monk said, “The stone tortoise is speaking.” The Master said, “What did it say to you?” A monk asked, “What did the ancients attain, such that they could just cease?” The Master said, “Like a thief entering an empty room.” A monk asked, “Why did the Bodhisattva of Boundless Body not see the uṣṇīṣa mark of the Tathāgata?” The Master said, “Tell me, does the Tathāgata still have an uṣṇīṣa mark?” A monk asked, “What happens when it cannot be lifted on the summit of Mount Dayu?” The Master said, “Why was the Sixth Ancestor able to carry it off?” A monk asked, “What happens when the two rats gnaw at the vine?” The Master said, “One must have a hiding place to manage it.” The monk said, “What is the hiding place?” The Master said, “Do you still see this fellow?” A monk asked, “Vimalakīrti held the world in his palm. I wonder where Vimalakīrti was standing?” The Master said, “Practitioner, you say: Vimalakīrti held the world in his palm.” A monk asked, “Does a person who knows there is that which exists still have birth and death or not?” The Master said, “Just like when the practitioner had not yet awakened.” A monk asked, “What is the meaning of coming from the West?” The Master said, “This one question is the most bitter.” (Baoci said, “This question is the best.”) A monk asked, “Are the intention of the ancestral masters and the intention of the teachings the same or different?” The Master said, “The ancestral masters came afterward.” A monk asked, “An ancestral master is a śramaṇa of no-affairs.” The Master said, “If one is a śramaṇa, one cannot be without affairs.” The monk said, “Why can one not be without affairs?” The Master said, “To find one is hard to come by.” A monk asked, “When the toad lacks the light of shining back, and the jade rabbit has no thought of accompanying the moon, what then?” The Master said, “Even the rulers Yao and Shun still had transforming influence.” (Qi of Dongchan said, “What greeting is this? In the twelve hours of the day, what season is it for the sthavira?”) A monk asked, “How can this body attain peace?” The Master said, “Only when you are not deceived by another body will you manage it.” (Fayan said otherwise, “Who is troubling you?”) In the eighth month of the third year of Longde of the Liang, the guisi year, the Master manifested a slight illness. In the middle of the night on the thirteenth day of the ninth month, a large star fell before the abbot’s quarters. At dawn, he sat upright and passed away. His age was eighty-nine.