北山錄 3.4.4

3.4.4

he could still become a Buddha of the Ten Epithets (those who first enter the kalpa prior to the stages become the Ten Abodes), how much more so a bodhisattva! Thus, some took [Bao]zhi to be Avalokiteśvara, but it is not necessarily the case that Avalokiteśvara was Zhi (expedient manifestations of sages and worthies are all like this; it is not necessarily only Avalokiteśvara). Zhi often visited Faxiang Yun of Guangzhai; whenever he stayed overnight, he would say: "I wish to explain the Lion's Roar." Yun analysed it for him and snapped his fingers, saying: "Excellent! How subtle!" When close to his end, he lit a candle and handed it to the attendant of the rear pavilion. The Emperor said: "He is entrusting his affairs after death to me." He ordered a lavish burial (namely, he died at Kaishan Temple in the fourteenth year of the Tianjian era of Emperor Wu of Liang). There was Shi Zong, a native of Penglai. Maru, Shao Shuo, and Zhang Nu (these four men were all figures beyond mundane things) were all of his kind. Maru met with Fotudeng; the words they exchanged were quite secret and profound. At that time, people seldom saw Zhang Nu eat, yet his skin was always healthy and glowing; in winter and summer, he wore only a single unlined garment. The foreign cleric Saṅghaṭa was an extraordinary and miraculous man. He lodged at Changgan Temple (in Yangzhou) sharing a room with the monk Sengwu. At night, he took the temple's finial pillar, lifted it up into the clouds, and only then brought it down, enjoining Sengwu not to divulge it (the finial refers to the temple pagoda's spire; Saṅghaṭa did not let Sengwu reveal it to people). Later on the road he saw Zhang Nu (Saṅghaṭa saw him); he smiled with delight and said: "In the east I saw Cai Tun; in the south I sought Ma Sheng; in the north I encountered Wang Nian (all men who concealed their traces). Now I wish to go to Baodu; thus I meet with you." Zhang Nu wrote a poem on a locust tree, saying: "Within the vast Great Form (the expanse of the Dharma realm, where phenomena are boundlessly immense), / Radiance is truly manifested (the spiritual luminosity of original nature ever illumines itself). / Why should the confused and deluded / Give rein to delusion and invite their own calamity? (They cannot recognise the nature of original enlightenment; tumbling into the five desires, their delusion invites calamity. This expresses grief and lamentation over ordinary fools who do not awaken.) / Few are those who go to the place of joy (the realm of the Buddhas ever reaches down to guide; the foolish and ignorant among the worldly refuse to enter); / The path of suffering is like an overturned pouch (sinking into the three woeful paths; once the human body is lost, it can never be regained, just like a water-pouch). / If one does not possess the resolve of pine and cypress, / What can one use to face the wind and frost? (If one lacks firm resolve, how can one confront the myriad sensory objects? When the wind and frost of birth and death arrive, what will one rely upon?) / At leisure, lingering beyond the purple clouds, / Singing a long song that ascends into the clear azure (the clear azure is heaven. This is Zhang Nu's self-expression; namely, casually chanting and delighting in the Way, swimming freely between heaven and earth). / The clear, empty, formless water (the highest good is like water, clear and empty without waves; the myriad conditions unmoving, the waves of consciousness are fundamentally still) / Should manifest in a land of affinity (when affinities in this realm are exhausted, he transforms another realm). / The Year Star assisted the Han sovereign (assisting and supporting; Dongfang Shuo was the essence of the Year Star, descending to assist the sovereign Emperor Wu of Han); / The stellar luminescence aided the Yin king (Fu Yue was the Fu Yue star, descending to assist King Wu Ding of Yin). / As for me, I am neither of these two immortals (saying, 'I am not these two immortals, Shuo and Fu'); / Concealing my traces in the nine directions (the nine directions are the eight directions and above). / I also see the worldly mortals; / Meeting my eyes, it brings aching grief (these two lines express grief). / I make a brief chant to observe their inclinations; / How could I say it exhausts what is held within my breast? (Because my intention resides there, I briefly composed this song. How could it exhaust the capacity of my breast?)" [Saṅgha]ṭa responded with a poem sent to him and delivered a letter (the text has not been seen). When Zhang Nu spoke with [Bei]du, none could understand (this is what Lord Liu's Jia hua calls 'enigmatic words'). For their spirits roamed beyond what is known, and those within could not fathom it (the three realms are all objects of cognition. One suspects this man was beyond the three realms; living now within the three realms, they could not comprehend his discourse). Now, to feign wisdom when foolish is easy, but to feign deafness and conform to ignorance is difficult (words from the Zuo zhuan). Like Baodu and Baozhi, their appearance was different but their minds tallied (a gentleman is harmonious but does not conform). Internally luminous, they were never foolish (internally harmonised with the true realm, how could they be called foolish?); fools called them fools (fools did not comprehend, so they called them fools). Leaving traces without flaunting wisdom, the wise called them wise (concealing their traces while internally illuminating, those who understand know their wisdom). Yet human minds lack constancy; they shift according to circumstances. In general, when things maintain the ordinary, ears and eyes are not alarmed (if not displaying oddities, one cannot turn their consciousness or alarm their ears and eyes). Therefore, amid turbulent currents, one must rely upon extraordinary conduct in order to aid the teaching (in times of shallow and turbulent customs, one ought to display extraordinary conduct as expedient transformation to aid the wind of teaching); it is like the transformations of wind, rain, thunder, and lightning altering the feelings of the myriad creatures (revolution is change. When spring thunder rumbles, hibernating creatures emerge; when the east wind blows, thin ice melts. The top six line of the Hexagram Ge says: 'The gentleman transforms like a leopard; his markings are distinct'). When the scriptures speak of the three mysteries, does it not lie in this? (The three mysteries are speech, conduct, and mind.) However, great Ruists and minor Ruists steal through poetry (great Ruists are noble Ruists; minor Ruists are petty Ruists. Ruists study diligently day and night to await inquiry, cherish loyalty and trustworthiness to await employment, and exert themselves in practice to establish themselves; such is what they do. The minor Ruists of today memorize fragments and isolated words to steal fame and reputation, so they are called thieves); foolish clerics and foolish laypeople steal through the Dharma. Thus there are those who adopt alluring appearances and extravagant, monstrous speech (hence there are fraudulent individuals; the world calls them sages, and thereupon they also steal and imitate alluring appearances and monstrous garments to delude the world, multiplying to great excess). At first they are called wise and sage; in the end they are despised and disgraced (such as the Mountain Fruit or Diamond Chan types, of whom there are many). But among those of utmost faith, the genuine and the fraudulent are both received, and good sprouts are ruined by darnel (good sprouts are grain and millet; grain is fine grain; darnel is weed. Though fine grain is mixed with weeds, it is still called good grain); among the unbelieving, the foolish and the sage are both rejected, and the jade of He is mixed with stone from Yan (an unbelieving person rejects both good and bad, so jade and stone are both discarded; Yan stone resembles jade). For the weeder and the jade polisher, this is truly a cause for grief (the weeder is the farmer; the jade polisher is the lapidary; they grieve over the darnel among grain and the Yan stone with jade). Among the gates of the powerful and noble, rare are those who do not take crude vessels or Qiongqi to be possessors of the Way (crude vessels belong to the category of basins; seeing a class of mediocre monks whose appearance is as rustic as a basin, completely unaware that internally they harbor the cunning and treacherous conduct of Qiongqi, the noble gates promptly consider them possessors of the Way). Valuing their chaotic minds and vulgar appearances, their crude conduct (simply because their robes are dusty and worn, and their speech simple and clumsy, they value them as people of the Way), at first they draw close to them, and next they praise them. When those fools gain favor with the powerful and noble, they become blind to penal statutes; wickedness and deceit are employed, and there is no foolish evil they will not commit. Once it becomes blatant, they themselves do not take their blindness as their fault.