續傳燈錄 22.26

22.26

Chan Master Fogzhao Gao of Fayun in the Eastern Capital went on itinerant pilgrimage from his youth and visited Chan Master Tongji of Yuantong. During his entry into the abbot's room, Ji brought up: 'A monk asked Touzi, "When a person of the Great Death comes back to life, how is it?" Touzi said, "Not permitted to travel by night; he must arrive by daybreak." What does this mean?' The Master said, 'Great kindness is hard to repay.' Ji was delighted and appointed him head monk. In the evening, he took up the whisk for the assembly; Ji was slow and stammering, and the assembly laughed at him. The Master had a look of shame. The next day, he was serving tea in the Saṅgha hall; when he knocked the tea ladle to the ground and saw it bounce, he attained the samādhi of responding to capacity. Later he relied on Zhenjing. Because of reading an ancestral verse that said: 'The mind is the same as the realm of empty space, / Showing the Dharma equal to empty space. / When one realizes empty space, / There is neither right nor wrong,' he was suddenly awakened with great awakening. He often said to people, 'On the twenty-first day of the eleventh month in the third year of the Shaosheng era, I awakened to the Chan of the square inch.' He came forth to dwell at Guizong, and by imperial decree resided at Jing'yin. Because a monk asked, 'What did Bodhidharma transmit when coming from the West?' the Master said, 'Zhou, Qin, Han, and Wei.' [A monk] asked, 'In the past, a monk asked Yunmen, "What is the phrase that penetrates the Dharmakāya?" Yunmen said, "Hide the body inside the Northern Dipper." What was his meaning?' The Master said, 'Pieces of a sincere heart.' [The monk] said, 'If it were this student, it would not be so.' The Master said, 'What would you do?' [The monk] said, 'Last night I lifted my head to look at the Northern Dipper; faintly, it resembled a spotted sugar cake.' The Master said, 'You only think of water and grass; you know nothing else.' Ascending the hall: 'The ancestral intention from the West is a special transmission outside the teachings; unless one is of great capacity, one cannot verify and enter it. Those who verify and enter it are not turned by words and letters, nor deluded by sounds, forms, right, or wrong; neither is there the distinction between Yunmen and Linji, nor the difference between Zhaozhou and Deshan. Therefore, in chanting the Way, one must clarify that within speech there is no speech, and within no speech there is speech. If you comprehend here, you can be said to wear clothes all day without ever hanging a single thread, and eat food all day without ever biting a single grain of rice. Even scolding buddhas and cursing patriarchs—what fault is there? Even though it is so, if you wish not to incur the karma of the Avīci hell, do not slander the Tathāgata's wheel of the true Dharma.' He gave a shout and stepped down from the seat. Ascending the hall, he took up his staff and said, 'Guizong was able to slash the snake; Heshan understood beating the drum. The myriad phenomena and dense forms all depart from here.' He threw down the staff and said, 'Return to the hall and drink tea.' Because the Master's forceful investigation reached great depth, his words did not conform to the times. Whenever instructing the assembly, he often cited: 'This old monk's official record of the eighth year of the Xining era was submitted to Fengxiang Prefecture: in that year, forty li of Mount Hua collapsed, crushing eighty villages of households. When will you youngsters, like eggplants and gourds, understand?' Someone asked, 'Upon the precious flower-throne of the king, why do you solely speak of worldly truth?' The Master said, 'Foolish man! How could the buddha-nature be of two kinds?'