鐔津文集 11.10

11.10

慧遠和尚以有道稱於四方。在天禧乾興間。其名甚振學者無遠近歸之。如水沛然就下。予少聞之恨不識其人。晚游吳得其語於勤暹二師。觀其發演詳悉應對次序。語言必文。不以凡近雜出。雖出入大經大論。傍及治世文書老子莊周之說而不疑。閒究其意義所歸。而與佛法奧妙似乎不可以智窮。神而明之。其庶幾乎。始達磨大師以佛心印至中國。會梁天子耽有為不省其言。達磨北入嵩山。面壁終日默坐九年。華人之疑稍解。而達磨之道遂傳矣。以故後世傳高僧者。以禪觀定其所傳。又後世學者無遠識頗信傳者為然其言。亦不思之甚也。達磨之道豈止於禪觀而已矣夫禪者靜也。觀者觀也。聖人教初學者。使靜思慮以觀其道也。若達磨所傳承於高足弟子大迦葉。昔如來將化以正法眼。可以言語發。不可言語到。故命大迦葉以心相傳。所謂正法者也。大教之所以出。眾經之所以明也。得乎此者。雖以萬端言之。其所言未始雜也。不得乎此者。雖絕言而守之。其所守未始不惑也。今和尚之言。其得正法之謂也。禪觀焉能盡之。和尚出於雲門大師三世。雲門出於大鑒禪師八世。嗚呼去聖人益遠。學者疑惑錯謬。當其時和尚去雲門大師未百年。獨抱正法與其人相望。毅然引學者。以其正法眼藏以正其傳授學者。真若得止以息狂走。其於教道而德亦至矣。既沒。弟子輩緝其言。以其所居之地。名之曰武陵集。慶曆壬午歲孟冬二十日序。

The Venerable Huiyuan was praised across the four quarters for possessing the Way. During the Tianxi and Qianxing eras [1017–1022], his renown shook far and wide, and students converged upon him from near and far like water surging downward. I heard of him in my youth and regretted not having met him. Later, while traveling in Wu, I obtained his sayings from the two masters Qin and Xian. Observing his expositions—detailed and thorough, his responses well-ordered, his language invariably refined without mixed colloquialisms—even when drawing in and out of the great sutras and treatises, and touching laterally upon the texts of statecraft and the sayings of Laozi and Zhuang Zhou, he had no doubts. When I quietly investigated where his meanings led, they seemed impossible to exhaust through intellect, converging with the profound subtleties of the Buddhadharma. If one spiritualizes and illumines them, one might come close! Originally, when Great Master Bodhidharma came to China with the Buddha's mind-seal, it happened that the Liang emperor was absorbed in conditioned deeds and did not understand his words. Bodhidharma went north to Mount Song, facing the wall all day in silent sitting for nine years; only then did the doubts of the Chinese gradually dissolve, and Bodhidharma's way was transmitted. For this reason, later generations who wrote biographies of eminent monks defined what was transmitted in terms of "dhyāna contemplation"; and later students, lacking foresight, quite believed the biographers and took their words to be correct, which was also thoroughly unreflective. How could Bodhidharma's way be limited to dhyāna contemplation alone? Dhyāna is stillness, and contemplation is observing; the sage taught beginners to still their thoughts so as to observe their way. But as for what Bodhidharma transmitted, he inherited it from the senior disciple Mahākāśyapa. Formerly, when the Tathāgata was about to transform [the world], it was through the true Dharma eye, which can be expressed in words but cannot be reached by words; therefore, he commanded Mahākāśyapa to transmit it from mind to mind. This is what is called the true Dharma. It is that from which the great teaching emerges and that which the various sutras clarify. Those who attain this, even if speaking in ten thousand ways, are never confused in what they say. Those who do not attain this, even if cutting off speech and clinging to it, are never free from delusion in what they maintain. Now, as for the Venerable's words, they may be said to have attained the true Dharma; how could dhyāna contemplation exhaust them? The Venerable emerged in the third generation after Great Master Yunmen; Yunmen emerged in the eighth generation after Chan Master Dajian. Alas! The further we are from the sage, the more confused and erroneous students become. At that time, the Venerable was less than a hundred years from Great Master Yunmen; embracing the true Dharma alone, he stood in mutual regard with that man, resolutely guiding students by using the treasury of the true Dharma eye to rectify their transmission, so that students truly seemed to find rest and cease their frantic running. Toward the doctrinal path, his virtue was indeed supreme! After he passed away, his disciples compiled his words and, based on the place where he had dwelled, named it *Wuling ji*. Prefaced on the twentieth day of the first month of winter in the renwu year of the Qingli era [1042].