續傳燈錄 2.43

2.43

Chan Master Ruixin of Jinshan in Runzhou. A monk asked, "'I have great affliction because I have a body.' Before my father and mother had given birth [to me], where was this body?" The Master said, "For vast eons there has been no place; / If one discusses arising and ceasing, all becomes error." The monk said, "In that case, it pervades the ten directions, and the mind is not in any place." The Master said, "Shaking a post in the mud." He ascended the hall: "What is valued in the mundane world is the jade of He and the pearl of Marquis Sui; Jinshan calls them donkey dung and horse manure. What is valued beyond the mundane world is tathatā, liberation, bodhi, and nirvāṇa; Jinshan calls them boiling flatulence and clattering bowls. Now tell me, where do such words land? It certainly is not that the mind of grasping and rejecting is heavy or that one believes in inverted views. Do you all want to understand? A fierce tiger does not look back at meat upon a table; how could a great furnace forge an awl inside a bag?"