出三藏記集 6.14

6.14

夫意也者。眾苦之萠基。背正之元本。荒迷放蕩浪逸無崖。若狂夫之無所麗。愛惡充心耽昏無節。若夷狄之無君。微矣哉。即之無像尋之無朕。則毫末不足以喻其細。迅矣哉。僨蹻惚怳眴匝宇宙。則奔電不足以比其速。是以彈指之間九百六十轉。一日一夕十三億想。念必嚮報成生死栽。一身所種滋蔓彌劫。凡在三界倒見之徒。溺喪淵流莫能自反。正覺慈愍開示慧路。防其終凶之原漸。塞其忿欲之微兆。為啟安般之要徑。泯生滅以冥寂。申道品以養恬。建十慧以入微。縶九神之逸足。防七識之洪流。故曰守意也。若乃制伏麁垢弗剗漏結者。亦有望見貿樂之士。閉色聲於視聽。遏塵想以禪寂。乘靜泊之禎祥。納色天之嘉祚。然正志荒於華樂。昔習沒於交逸。福田矜執而日零。毒根迭興而罪襲。是以輪迴五趣億劫難拔。嬰羅欲罔有劇深牢。由於無慧樂定不惟道門使其然也。至於乘慧入禪亦有三輩。或畏苦滅色樂宿泥洹。志存自濟不務兼利者。為無著乘。或仰希妙相仍有遣無。不建大悲練盡緣縛者。則號緣覺。菩薩者。深達有本暢因緣無。達本者有有自空。暢無者因緣常寂。自空故。不出有以入無。常寂故。不盡緣以歸空。住理而有非所緣。非緣故無無所脫。苟厝心領要。觸有悟理者。則不假外以靜內。不因禪而成慧。故曰阿惟越致。不隨四禪也。若欲塵翳心慧不常立者。乃假以安般息其馳想。猶農夫之淨地。明鏡之瑩剗矣。然即芸耨不以為地。地淨而種滋。瑩剗非以為鏡。鏡淨而照明。故開士行禪非為守寂。在遊心於玄冥矣。肇自發心悲盟弘普。秉權積德忘期安眾。眾雖濟而莫脫。將廢知而去筌矣。是謂菩薩不滅想取證也。此三乘雖同假禪靜至於建志。厥初各有攸歸。故學者宜恢心宏摸殖栽於始也。漢之季世。有捨家開士。安清字世高。安息國王之太子也。審榮辱之浮寄。齊死生乎一貫。遂脫簁於萬乘。抱玄德而遊化。演道教以發矇。表神變以諒之。于時儁乂歸宗釋華崇實者。若禽狩之從麟鳳。鱗介之赴虬蔡矣。又博綜殊俗善眾國音。傳授斯經變為晉文。其所譯出百餘萬言。探暢幽賾淵玄難測。此安般典。其文雖約義關眾經。自淺至精眾行具舉。學之先要孰踰者乎。行者欲凝神反朴道濟無外而不循斯法者。何異刖夫之陟太山。無翅而圖昇虛乎。釋迦如來。妙慧足於曩劫。歷無數以潛化。至于眾生運會圓滿告成。而猶現行六年以為教端者。誠以鎮一紛耶。莫尚茲也。由是而觀。可不務歟。敷染習沈冥積罪歷劫。生與佛乖弗覩神化。雖以微祚得稟遺典。而情想繁蕪道根未固。仰欣聖軌未一暫履。夕惕戰懼惄焉如懤。是以誠心諷誦以鍾識習。每遭明叡輒咨凝滯。然冥宗已遠義訓小殊。乃採集英彥戢而載焉。雖粗聞大要。未悟者眾。於是復率愚思推撿諸數。尋求明證。遂相繼續撰為注義。并抄撮大安般修行諸經事相應者。引而合之。或以隱顯相從差簡搜尋之煩。經道弘深。既非愚淺所能裁衷。又辭意鄙拙萬不暢一。祇增理穢。敢云足以闡融妙旨乎。實欲私記所識以備遺忘而已耳。儻有覽者。願亮不逮正其愚謬焉。

Now, the mind is the sprouting root of all suffering, the primordial origin of deviating from correctness. Unbridled and wanton, adrift without bound, it is like a madman with nothing to rely on. Affection and aversion fill its core; it is steeped in benightedness without measure, like barbarian tribes lacking a ruler. How subtle it is! Approaching it, there is no form; seeking it, there is no omen; thus a hair's tip is not enough to illustrate its minuteness. How swift it is! Tumbling and flitting, it circles the universe in an instant; thus racing lightning is not enough to compare with its speed. Therefore, in the snap of a finger, there are nine hundred and sixty transitions; in a day and a night, one billion three hundred million thoughts. Every mental impulse must invite retribution, forming the planting seeds of birth and death. What is sown in a single lifetime spreads and entangles for kalpas on end. All ordinary beings within the three realms who cling to inverted views sink and drown in this deep abyss, none able to return by themselves. The Rightly Awakened One, out of loving-kindness and compassion, opened and revealed the path of wisdom, guarding against the gradual origins of their final calamity and blocking the subtle omens of their anger and desire. For them, he opened the essential path of ānāpāna: obliterating arising and ceasing so as to enter dark tranquility, unfolding the limbs of awakening so as to nourish serenity, establishing the ten wisdoms so as to enter the subtle, binding the unrestrained feet of the nine spirits, and damming the torrential flow of the seven consciousnesses. Hence it is called 'guarding the mind.' As for those who subdue coarse defilements without cutting away the fetters of outflows, there are also those who, hoping for a pleasant outcome, shut out sights and sounds from their vision and hearing, quell worldly thoughts through dhyāna stillness, take advantage of the auspicious signs of tranquil calm, and receive the splendid blessings of the form heavens. Yet their correct purpose becomes lost in flourishing pleasures, and their past practice is submerged in mutual ease. As they pridefully grasp at their field of merit, it diminishes by the day; the roots of poison arise in succession, and their transgressions follow upon them. Thus they transmigrate through the five destinies, hard to extricate for millions of kalpas; caught in the snare of desires, their plight is worse than a deep prison. That this is brought about is entirely due to lacking wisdom, delighting in concentration, and not contemplating the gates to the path. As for entering dhyāna by relying on wisdom, there are also three classes. Those who, fearing suffering, extinguish form, delighting in resting in nirvāṇa, and whose intentions rest upon saving themselves without striving to benefit others as well, belong to the unattached vehicle (the Arhat vehicle). Those who look up and hope for the wondrous marks, still having something to cast off as nothingness, and who do not establish great compassion to thoroughly smelt away the fetters of conditions, are called pratyekabuddhas. As for the bodhisattva, they profoundly realize the root of existence and thoroughly understand the nothingness of conditioned arising. To realize the root is that existence itself is empty; to understand nothingness is that conditioned arising is constantly tranquil. Because it is of itself empty, they do not emerge from existence to enter nothingness; because it is constantly tranquil, they do not exhaust conditions to return to emptiness. Abiding in the principle, existence is not an object of conditions; because it is not an object of conditions, there is no nothingness from which to be freed. If one can settle the mind and grasp the essentials, awakening to the principle upon contacting existence, then one does not rely on the external to quiet the internal, nor does one depend on dhyāna to accomplish wisdom. Hence it is said: 'An avaivartika does not follow the four dhyānas.' If worldly dust obscures the mind so that wisdom does not constantly stand firm, then one relies on ānāpāna to put an end to galloping thoughts, just as a farmer clears his field, or as one polishes and scrapes a bright mirror. Yet weeding and tilling is not done for the sake of the ground itself; rather, when the ground is clear, the seeds flourish. Polishing and scraping is not done for the sake of the mirror itself; rather, when the mirror is clean, it shines clearly. Therefore, when an enlightened being practices dhyāna, it is not for the sake of preserving stillness, but for letting the mind roam in the dark mystery. Beginning with the initial aspiration, their vows of compassion are vast and universal; holding expedient means and accumulating merit, they forget their own timeline to bring peace to the multitude. Although the multitude is delivered, no one is freed [as a separate self]; one discards knowledge and sets aside the fish trap. This is called the bodhisattva not extinguishing thoughts to realize the fruit. Although these three vehicles equally rely on the tranquility of dhyāna, when it comes to establishing their intent, their beginnings each have their own destination. Therefore, practitioners should broaden their minds with grand plans and plant their seeds right at the start. In the decline of the Han dynasty, there was a renunciant enlightened being named An Qing, courtesy name Shigao, the crown prince of the King of Parthia. Discerning the floating impermanence of glory and disgrace, and viewing life and death as an unbroken thread, he cast off the bonds of a royal court of ten thousand chariots, embraced dark virtue, and roamed to transform others. Expounding the teachings of the Path to dispel blindness, he manifested spiritual transformations to inspire trust. At that time, outstanding men who returned to the source, discarding outer elegance to venerate reality, were like birds and beasts following the qilin and phoenix, or scaled and shelled creatures hurrying toward the dragon and great tortoise. Furthermore, he was broadly conversant with diverse customs and skilled in the languages of many countries. He transmitted this sūtra, transforming it into Jin prose. The translations he produced exceeded a million words; plumbing and thoroughly expressing profound subtleties, they were deep, abstruse, and hard to fathom. As for this ānāpāna scripture, although its text is concise, its meaning connects with all sūtras; from the shallow to the refined, all practices are fully set forth. Among the first essentials of study, what could surpass it? If a practitioner desires to concentrate the spirit and return to simplicity, delivering the path without limit, and yet does not follow this method, how does that differ from a man with amputated feet climbing Mount Tai, or one attempting to ascend the void without wings? Śākyamuni Tathāgata's wondrous wisdom was already sufficient in previous kalpas, and he passed through countless [eons] secretly transforming beings. When the karmic circumstances of sentient beings were complete and announced as fulfilled, he still manifested six years of practice to serve as the start of the teaching. Truly, to settle and unify confusion, nothing surpasses this! Viewing it from this perspective, can one not apply oneself to it? I, Xie Fu, have been tainted by habit and submerged in darkness, accumulating transgressions across kalpas. Born apart from the Buddha, I have not witnessed his spiritual transformations. Although by slight fortune I have been able to receive the bequeathed scriptures, my emotional thoughts are entangled and overgrown, and my roots of the Path are not yet firm. Looking up with joy to the holy tracks, I have not yet stepped on them even for a moment; morning and evening I am fearful and trembling, distressed as if grieving. Therefore, with a sincere heart, I chant and recite them so as to amass learned habits; whenever I encounter the bright and wise, I always inquire about my sticking points. Yet the dark ancestral truth is already remote, and semantic explanations differ slightly. Thereupon, I gathered the words of the eminent and gathered them together for recording. Although I had heard the general outlines, those who had not awakened were many. Thereupon, following my humble thoughts, I examined and checked the various enumerations, searching for clear evidence, and successively compiled them into an annotated commentary. I also extracted corresponding matters from various scriptures on the practice of the Mahā-ānāpāna, citing and combining them. Sometimes I arranged the hidden and the manifest together to slightly ease the trouble of searching. The path of the scriptures is grand and deep; it is neither something my shallow mind can assess, nor can my coarse phrasing express one part in ten thousand. It only adds defilement to the principle; how dare I say it is sufficient to elucidate and fuse the wondrous meaning? In truth, I only wished to record privately what I know to prevent forgetting. If there are readers, I hope they will understand my shortcomings and correct my foolish errors.