景德傳燈錄 9.15

9.15

Chan Master Shenzan of Guling in Fuzhou: After undergoing training at Dazhong Monastery in his home prefecture, he went on pilgrimage, encountered Baizhang, and attained awakening. He then returned to his original monastery. His tonsure master asked him, "Since you left me to go abroad, what enterprise have you accomplished?" He replied, "No enterprise at all." Thereupon he was dispatched to perform menial labor. One day, as the tonsure master was bathing, he ordered the master to scrub the grime from his back. The master patted his back and said, "A fine Buddha hall, but the Buddha is not holy!" The master turned his head and looked at him. The master said, "Although the Buddha is not holy, he can nevertheless emit light." Another day, his master was reading a sūtra under a window. A bee bumped against the window paper trying to get out. The master, seeing this, said, "The world is so vast, yet it is unwilling to go out; drilling into old paper, when in the year of the donkey will it ever get out?" His master put down the sūtra and asked, "Whom did you meet on your pilgrimage? Time and again I have noticed your speech is extraordinary." The master said, "I received the direction of Upādhyāya Baizhang to a resting place; now I merely wish to repay your compassionate virtue." Thereupon his master informed the assembly, hosted a feast, and invited the master to preach the Dharma. The master mounted the seat, extolled Baizhang's house style, and said: "The numinous light shines alone, utterly transcending senses and dust. Its substance reveals the true and constant, unconfined by words and letters. The mind-nature is undefiled, originally complete in itself. Merely leave behind false conditions, and you are the Tathātā Buddha." His master was awakened upon these words and said, "Who could have expected that in my declining years I would hear of the ultimate matter?" Later, the master resided at Guling, gathering disciples for several years. When he was about to pass away, he shaved, bathed, and had the bell struck. He told the assembly, "Do you all recognize the soundless samādhi?" The assembly said, "We do not recognize it." The master said, "Listen quietly, and do not think of anything else." The assembly all leaned forward to listen. The master solemnly passed away in peace. His stūpa remains at that mountain.