景德傳燈錄 6.5

6.5

A monk asked, "Why does the Upādhyāya say 'mind itself is Buddha'?" The Master said, "To stop a small child's crying." The monk said, "What about when the crying has stopped?" The Master said, "Not mind, not Buddha." The monk said, "Aside from these two kinds of people, how do you instruct someone who comes?" The Master said, "I tell him, 'It is not a thing.'" The monk said, "What about if someone who is within it suddenly comes?" The Master said, "For the time being, I teach him to experience the Great Way." A monk asked, "What is the meaning of the [Patriarch's] coming from the West?" The Master said, "Right now, what is the meaning?" Layman Pang asked, "Water has no sinews or bones, yet it can support a ship of ten thousand bushels. What is the principle of this?" The Master said, "Here there is neither water nor ship; what sinews and bones are you talking about?" One day the Master ascended the hall. After a long pause, Baizhang rolled up the mat in front of him. The Master then left the hall. Baizhang asked, "What is the essential purport of the Buddhadharma?" The Master said, "It is precisely where you let go of your body and life." The Master asked Baizhang, "With what Dharma do you instruct people?" Baizhang held up his whisk. The Master said, "Is it only this, or is there something else?" Baizhang threw down the whisk. A monk asked, "How can one accord with the Way?" The Master said, "I have long been out of accord with the Way." A monk asked, "What is the meaning of the [Patriarch's] coming from the West?" The Master struck him and said, "If I did not strike you, the various quarters would laugh at me." A novice returned from his travels, drew a circular figure in front of the Master, bowed upon it, and stood there. The Master said, "Do you not wish to become a Buddha?" [The novice] said, "I do not know how to rub my eyes [to create illusions]." The Master said, "I am not as good as you." The novice made no reply. Deng Yinfeng took his leave of the Master. The Master said, "Where are you going?" He replied, "To Shitou." The Master said, "The path of Shitou is slippery." He replied, "Carrying a pole on my person, I play my role as the occasion arises," and departed. As soon as he reached Shitou, he circled the meditation platform once, shook his staff once, and asked, "What is the central teaching?" Shitou said, "Heaven! Heaven!" Yinfeng was speechless. He returned and related this to the Master. The Master said, "Go again. When you see him say 'Heaven,' you then sigh twice: 'Xu, xu!'" Yinfeng went to Shitou again and asked as before, "What is the central teaching?" Shitou then sighed, "Xu, xu!" Yinfeng was again speechless. He returned. The Master said, "I told you: the path of Shitou is slippery." A monk drew four strokes in front of the Master, one long on top and three short below, and asked, "You may not say 'one long and three short.' Aside from these four words, please answer, Upādhyāya." The Master then drew one stroke on the ground and said, "You may not say long or short. I have answered you." (National Teacher Zhong, hearing of this, said differently: "Why did he not ask this old monk?") A lecturing monk came and asked, "I do not know what Dharma the Chan school transmits and upholds?" The Master asked in return, "What Dharma does the lecturer transmit and uphold?" The other said, "I have humbly lectured on more than twenty volumes of sūtras and treatises." The Master said, "Could you not be a lion's cub?" He said, "I would not dare." The Master made a sound: "Xu, xu!" The other said, "This is the Dharma." The Master said, "What Dharma is it?" He said, "The Dharma of the lion leaving the cave." The Master then remained silent. The other said, "This is also the Dharma." The Master said, "What Dharma is it?" He said, "The Dharma of the lion in the cave." The Master said, "When neither leaving nor entering, what Dharma is it?" There was no reply. (Baizhang said on his behalf, "Do you see?") He then took his leave and went out the door. The Master called, "Lecturer!" The other turned his head. The Master said, "What is it?" There was still no reply. The Master said, "This dull-rooted fellow!" The Surveillance Commissioner of Hongzhou asked, "If your disciple eats wine and meat, is that right, or is not eating them right?" The Master said, "If you eat them, that is the Vice Censor-in-Chief's salary; if you do not eat them, that is the Vice Censor-in-Chief's blessing." The Master had one hundred and thirty-nine disciples who entered his room, each becoming a leader of a region and transforming others boundlessly. In the first month of the fourth year of the Zhenyuan era, the Master ascended Mount Shimen in Jianchang and walked in the woods. Seeing a flat area in a ravine, he said to his attendant, "My decaying body will return to this ground next month." Having spoken, he returned. On the fourth day of the second month, he indeed had a slight illness. After bathing, he sat cross-legged and entered extinction. During the Yuanhe era, he was posthumously granted the title Chan Master Daji, and his stūpa was named Dazhuangyan. Today, his memorial hall remains in Haihun County. (The Biographies of Eminent Monks records: "Chan Master Dajue. According to the stūpa inscription composed by Quan Deyu, Mazu passed away at Kaiyuan Monastery and was cremated at Shimen, where a stūpa was erected. In the seventh month of the fourth year of Dazhong, after the Huichang suppression, Emperor Xuanzong decreed that Pei Xiu, Surveillance Commissioner of Jiangxi, rebuild the stūpa and monastery, bestowing the plaque name Baofeng.")