續傳燈錄 27.6.4

27.6.4

不得於舉起處承當。 速道速道。 僧擬進語。 師便打趁出。 于時罕有善其機者。 又曰。 喚作竹篦即觸。 不喚作竹篦即背。 不得下語。 不得無語。 不得良久。 不得卜度。 不得作女人拜遶禪床。 不得拂袖便行。 一切總不得。 爾便奪却竹篦。 我且許爾奪却。 我喚作拳頭則觸。 不喚作拳頭則背。 爾又如何奪。 更饒爾道箇請和尚放下著。 我且放下著。 我喚作露柱則觸。 不喚作露柱則背。 爾又如何奪。 我喚作山河大地則觸。 不喚作山河大地則背。 爾又如何奪。 時有舟峯長老云。 某甲看和尚竹篦子話。 如籍沒却人家財產了。 更要人納物事。 師曰。 爾譬喻得極妙。 我真箇要爾納物事。 爾無所從出。 便須討死路去也。 或投河或赴火。 [拚-ㄙ+云]得命方始死。 得死了却緩緩地再活起來。 喚爾作菩薩便歡喜。 喚爾作賊漢便惡發。 依前只是舊時人。 所以古人道。 懸崖撒手自肯承當。 絕後再蘇欺君不得。 到這裏始契得竹篦子話。 復說偈曰。 佛之一字尚不喜。 有何生死可相關。 當機覿面無回互。 說甚楞嚴義八還。 師闡揚宗教時。 有同時號稱宗師說法以寂照靜默為本者。 見士大夫為塵勞所障方寸不寧便為言。 令寒灰枯木去。 一條白練去。 古廟香爐去。 冷湫湫地去。 謂此法門可休歇人身心。 師以為如此見解墮在黑山下鬼窟裏。 教中謂之昏沈。 殊不知這箇猢猻子不死。 如何得休歇。 來為先鋒去為殿後底不死。 如何得休歇。 故師每力排之。 謂之邪師寂照禪斷佛慧命。 千佛出世不通懺悔。 一日室中坐。 有鄭昂尚明者。 持一辦香來怒氣可掬。 聲色俱厲云。 昂有一片香未燒在。 欲與和尚理會一件事。 只如默然無言。 是法門中第一等休歇處。 和尚肆意詆訶。 昂心疑和尚不到這田地所以信不及。 且如釋迦老子在摩竭提國。 三七日中掩室不作聲。 豈不是佛默然。 毘耶離城三十二菩薩各說不二法門。 末後維摩無語文殊讚善。 豈不是菩薩默然。 須菩提在巖中宴坐無言無說。 豈不是聲聞默然。 天帝釋見須菩提在巖中宴坐。 乃雨花供養亦無言說。 豈不是凡夫默然。 達磨游梁歷魏少林冷坐九年。 豈不是祖師默然。 魯祖見僧便面壁。 豈不是宗師默然。 和尚因什麼却力排默照以為邪非。 師曰。 爾曾讀莊子麼。 云是何不讀。 師曰。 莊子云言而足終日言而盡道。 言而不足終日言而盡物。 道物之極。 言默不足以載。 非言非默義有所極。 我也不曾看郭象解并諸家注解。 只據我杜撰說破爾這默然。 豈不見孔子一日大驚小怪道。 參乎吾道一以貫之。 曾子曰。 唯。 爾措大家纔聞箇唯字。 便來這裏惡口。 却云這一唯與天地同根萬物一體。 致君於堯舜之上。 成家立國出將入相。 以至啟手足時不出這一唯。 且喜沒交涉。 殊不知這箇道理。 便是曾子言而足。 孔子言而足。 其徒不會却問何謂也。 曾子見他理會不得。 却向第二頭答他話。 謂夫子之道不可無言。 所以云。 夫子之道忠恕而已矣。 要之道與物至極處不在言語上。 不在默然處。 言也載不得。 默也載不得。 公之所說尚不契莊子意。 何況要契釋迦老子達磨大師意耶。 爾要理會得莊子非言非默義有所極麼。 便是雲門大師拈起扇子云。 扇子𨁝跳上三十三天築著帝釋鼻孔東海鯉魚打一棒雨似傾盆。 爾若會得雲門這箇說話。 便是莊子說底。 曾子說底孔子說底一般。 昂遂無語。 師曰。 爾雖不語心猶未伏在。 然古人決定不在默然處坐地明矣。 爾適來舉釋迦掩室維摩默然。 且看舊時有箇坐主喚作肇法師。 把那無言說處。 說出來與人云。 釋迦掩室於摩竭。 淨名杜口於毘耶。 須菩提唱無說以顯道。 釋梵絕聽而雨花。 斯皆理為神御。 故口以之而默。

"You must not take it on where it is raised. Speak quickly! Speak quickly!" A monk intended to offer words; the master immediately hit him and drove him out. At that time, few were capable of dealing with his dynamic functioning. He also said: "If you call it a bamboo comb, that is an infringement; if you do not call it a bamboo comb, that is a contradiction. You may not offer words, you may not be wordless, you may not remain silent for a long while, you may not make conjectures, you may not bow like a woman and circumambulate the meditation couch, and you may not flick your sleeves and walk away. Absolutely none of these are permitted! Suppose you snatch away the bamboo comb; I will allow you to snatch it away. But if I call it a fist, that is an infringement; if I do not call it a fist, that is a contradiction. How will you snatch that away? Even if I let you say, 'Please put it down, Upādhyāya,' and I do put it down, if I call it an exposed pillar, that is an infringement; if I do not call it an exposed pillar, that is a contradiction. How will you snatch that away? If I call it the mountains, rivers, and the great earth, that is an infringement; if I do not call it the mountains, rivers, and the great earth, that is a contradiction. How will you snatch that away?" At that time, Elder Zhoufeng said: "As I see the Upādhyāya's gong'an of the bamboo comb, it is like confiscating someone's family property and then further demanding that they pay tribute." The master said: "Your metaphor is extremely wondrous! I truly do demand that you pay tribute. Having nowhere from which it can come, you must go find a path to death. You might throw yourself into a river or plunge into fire; only when you risk your life can you finally die. Once dead, you slowly come back to life again. If someone calls you a bodhisattva, you are delighted; if someone calls you a thief, you burst into rage. Just as before, you are merely that old person. Therefore the ancients said: 'Letting go over the cliff, one acknowledges it for oneself; reviving after complete extinction, no one can deceive you.' When you reach this point, only then do you accord with the gong'an of the bamboo comb." He further spoke a verse: "Even the single character 'Buddha' brings no joy; / What birth and death could be of any concern? / Meeting face to face at the crucial moment, there is no mutual evasion; / What talk is needed of the eight returns of the Śūraṅgama's meaning?" When the master was propagating the ancestral school, there were contemporary teachers claiming to be lineage masters who took silent illumination and quiescent stillness as fundamental in preaching the Dharma. Seeing that scholar-officials were burdened by worldly entanglements and had agitated minds, they told them to become like cold ashes and withered wood, like a strip of white silk, like an incense burner in an ancient shrine, and to go to a cold and desolate place. They claimed that this Dharma gate could bring rest to people's bodies and minds. The master regarded such views as falling into the demon's cave beneath the black mountain. In the teachings, this is called torpor. Little do they know that if this monkey does not die, how can there be rest? If the one that comes as the vanguard and goes as the rearguard does not die, how can there be rest? Therefore, the master forcefully rejected it every time, calling it the silent illumination Chan of heterodox masters that cuts off the wisdom-life of the Buddhas, which cannot be expiated even if a thousand Buddhas appear in the world. One day while he was sitting in the abbot's room, Zheng Ang, whose style was Shangming, came holding a stick of incense with an indignant air. Both his tone and expression severe, he said: "I, Ang, have a piece of incense not yet burned; I wish to settle a matter with the Upādhyāya. Silent wordlessness is the foremost resting place within the Dharma gates. The Upādhyāya slanders it at will. I suspect in my heart that the Upādhyāya has not reached this realm, which is why your faith does not reach it. Moreover, when Old Śākya was in Magadha, he shut his room for three times seven days without making a sound—was that not the Buddha's silence? In the city of Vaiśālī, thirty-two bodhisattvas each spoke of the non-dual Dharma gate; at the end, Vimalakīrti was wordless, and Mañjuśrī praised it—was that not a bodhisattva's silence? Subhūti sat peacefully in a cave without words or discourse—was that not a śrāvaka's silence? Śakra, Lord of the Gods, seeing Subhūti sitting peacefully in the cave, rained flowers in offering, also without words—was that not an ordinary being's silence? Bodhidharma visited Liang and traversed Wei, sitting coldly at Shaolin for nine years—was that not an ancestral master's silence? Whenever Luzu saw a monk, he faced the wall—was that not a lineage master's silence? Why does the Upādhyāya forcefully reject silent illumination, deeming it heterodox and wrong?" The master said: "Have you ever read Zhuangzi?" He replied: "Indeed, why would I not have read it?" The master said: "Zhuangzi says: 'When words are sufficient, speaking all day long completely expresses the Way; when words are insufficient, speaking all day long completely expresses mere things. The utmost of the Way and of things cannot be conveyed by speech or silence. Neither speech nor silence is where the meaning reaches its utmost.' I have never read Guo Xiang's commentary or the annotations of other schools either; relying solely on my own improvisation, I will smash this silence of yours. Have you not seen how Confucius one day made a great fuss, saying: 'Shen! My Way is bound together by a single thread'? Zengzi replied: 'Yes.' You poor scholars, as soon as you hear the single word 'Yes,' come here and abuse your mouths, saying that this single 'Yes' shares the same root as Heaven and Earth, forming one body with the myriad things; that it places the ruler above Yao and Shun; that it establishes the family, founds the state, produces generals and appoints ministers; and even that when one opens one's hands and feet, it does not depart from this single 'Yes.' Fortunately, none of that has anything to do with it! Little do you know that this principle was simply Zengzi speaking when words were sufficient, and Confucius speaking when words were sufficient. His disciples did not understand and asked, 'What did he mean?' Zengzi, seeing that they could not comprehend, replied to them on a secondary level, considering that the Master's Way could not be without words. Thus he said: 'The Master's Way is nothing more than loyalty and reciprocity.' The crux is that the utmost reaches of the Way and of things do not lie in speech, nor do they lie in silence. Speech cannot convey it, and silence cannot convey it. What you say does not even accord with Zhuangzi's meaning, let alone the meaning of Old Śākya and Grand Master Bodhidharma! Do you want to understand Zhuangzi's meaning where neither speech nor silence reaches the utmost? It is just like Grand Master Yunmen holding up his fan and saying: 'The fan jumps up to the Thirty-Three Heavens and strikes Śakra's nostril; the carp in the Eastern Sea receives a blow of the stick, and the rain pours down like a torrential bucketful.' If you understand this talk of Yunmen's, it is the same as what Zhuangzi said, what Zengzi said, and what Confucius said." Ang was thereupon speechless. The master said: "Although you do not speak, your mind is still not subdued. However, the ancients certainly did not sit in a place of silence; this is evident. Just now you cited Śākya shutting his room and Vimalakīrti's silence. Consider that in the old days there was a lecture master called Master Zhao. Bringing out that wordless place, he spoke it to others, saying: 'Śākya shut his room in Magadha; Vimalakīrti closed his mouth in Vaiśālī; Subhūti proclaimed wordlessness to reveal the Way; Śakra and Brahmā ceased listening and rained down flowers. In all these cases, principle guided the spirit, and therefore the mouth was silent on account of it.'"