景德傳燈錄 9.44

9.44

There was a great Chan master styled Xiyun, residing at Mount Huangbo beneath Vulture Peak in Gao'an County, Hongzhou. He was a direct descendant of the Sixth Patriarch of Caoxi, a spiritual son of Baizhang, and a nephew of Xitang. He solely bore the seal of the Supreme Vehicle that is free from words and letters, transmitting only the One Mind and no other dharma besides. The essence of the mind is also empty, and myriad conditions are entirely quiescent, like the great orb of the sun rising into the empty sky to shine, tranquil without a speck of dust. Those who realize it have neither new nor old, neither shallow nor deep. Those who expound it set up neither doctrinal interpretations nor sectarian leaders, nor do they open doors or windows. Directly here and now it is just it; to stir a thought is to deviate. Only thereafter is it the original Buddha. Therefore, his words were concise, his principle direct, his path lofty, and his conduct solitary. Students from the four quarters hastened toward his mountain from afar, and upon beholding his countenance became enlightened. The sea of people coming and going constantly numbered more than a thousand. In the second year of Huichang, when I served as surveillance commissioner in Zhongling, I invited him from the mountain to the prefecture to rest at Longxing Temple, where morning and evening I inquired into the Way. In the second year of Dazhong, when I served as surveillance commissioner in Wanling, I again respectfully invited him to my jurisdiction to lodge at Kaiyuan Temple, where morning and evening I received the Dharma. Retiring, I recorded it, obtaining merely one or two parts in ten, wearing it as a mind seal and not daring to propagate it. Now, fearing that these profound and exquisite meanings might not be heard in the future, I have brought them forth and given them to his disciples, the monks Taizhou and Fajian, who returned to Guangtang Temple on the former mountain to request the elders and the Dharma assembly to examine whether they accord with or differ from what they themselves used to hear in the past. Respectfully recorded on the eighth day of the tenth month in the eleventh year of Dazhong of the Great Tang. (From this point on, each section originally recorded the year and month; these are now omitted to avoid redundancy.)