Verification of Realizing the Mind and Seeing One’s True Nature 明心见性之证成
Master Yuanyin, Serialized in Chan, Issues 1–4 (1991) | 1991-06-07 | Download | AI assisted translation
| 经过详细讨论明心见性的意义，我们深切知道它关系佛教至钜。如果佛教徒都来奉行弘扬，加以提倡，佛教即能昌盛兴隆。反是，佛教即将奄奄一息，一蹶不振。 |
Having discussed in detail the significance of realizing the mind and seeing one’s true nature, we know deeply that it is of the utmost importance to Buddhism. If all Buddhists practice, propagate, and promote it, Buddhism can flourish and prosper. Otherwise, Buddhism will be left gasping for breath, unable to recover from its collapse. |
| 因为一个宗教兴亡盛衰，系于它的精神实质如何，如果只有形貌，而无精髓内容，这个宗教一定渐趋衰亡。 |
For the rise or decline, prosperity or decay, of a religion depends on the quality of its spiritual substance. If it has only an outward form and lacks essential content, that religion will inevitably decline and perish. |
| 明心见性是佛教的总纲，精髓所在！故一切宗派，任何法门无不环绕它而善巧方便地随顺众生不同的习性与各别的根器，建立多种多样的修习方法，以资发扬光大。方法虽多，目的则一。 |
Realizing the mind and seeing one’s true nature is the overarching principle and essential core of Buddhism. Therefore, every school and every dharma gate revolves around it, skillfully adapting to sentient beings’ differing dispositions and individual capacities to establish a great variety of methods of cultivation, thereby allowing it to be developed and spread. Though the methods are many, their purpose is one. |
| 行人如不按照各该宗派所订的仪轨与所建的法门，虔诚勤恳地努力修习，仅以烧香礼拜，求些福报为事，则不能得各该宗派之的旨——明心见性。不能明心见性，也自然达不到学佛的真正目的。 |
If practitioners do not follow the ritual procedures prescribed and the dharma gates established by their respective schools, diligently and sincerely applying themselves to cultivation, but merely burn incense, make prostrations, and seek a little blessing, they cannot attain the essential purport of those schools—realizing the mind and seeing one’s true nature. Without realizing the mind and seeing one’s true nature, they naturally cannot attain the true purpose of studying Buddhism. |
| 佛教的精神目标不能显扬，怎么能够不萎靡不振，日趋衰颓呢？所以我们要振兴佛教，非提倡明心见性不可！那么，我们用什么方法才能达到明心见性的目的呢？又有什么方法最快速最简易可行呢？为了适应上中下三根修行人的 |
If Buddhism’s spiritual goal cannot be made manifest, how could it fail to languish and decline day by day? Therefore, if we are to revitalize Buddhism, we must promote realizing the mind and seeing one’s true nature. What method, then, can enable us to attain this goal? And what method is the quickest, simplest, and most practicable? In order to accommodate practitioners of the highest, middling, and lowest capacities, |
| 爱好和便利不同习气的人迅速入门起见，兹择禅、净、密三宗中最简单、最迅速、最方便的修习方法，详细介绍如下。至于其他宗派，上面说过，只有其名，而无其实，无有真正修习之人。 |
and to enable people of differing habitual tendencies to enter the path swiftly, we shall now select from the three traditions of Chan, Pure Land, and Esoteric Buddhism the simplest, quickest, and most convenient methods of cultivation, and introduce them in detail below. As for the other schools, as stated above, they retain only their names and lack their actual substance; there are no people who genuinely practice them. |
| 如天台宗，虽有止观法门，而今行人皆修净土；华严宗虽有华严三观，但修行者不入禅即入净，不复修观；法相宗也有唯识观，但该宗行人，今则讨论教义，分析名相，作佛学研究，而不入观，至与性宗分河饮水，争论纷纷。其余如“三论”等宗，更连名义亦渐使人淡忘，故今暂置一边不去讨论它了。 |
For example, although the Tiantai school has the dharma gate of calming and contemplation, its practitioners today all cultivate the Pure Land path. Although the Huayan school has the three Huayan contemplations, its practitioners either enter Chan or Pure Land practice and no longer cultivate contemplation. The Dharma Characteristics School also has Consciousness-Only contemplation, but its practitioners now discuss doctrine, analyze technical terms and characteristics, and engage in Buddhist studies rather than contemplation; they have even divided from the Nature School into separate camps, with disputes arising in profusion. The remaining schools, such as the Three Treatises school, have gradually become so forgotten that even their names and teachings are fading from memory; therefore, we shall set them aside for the present and not discuss them. |
