| 2022-09-18 | Download | AI assisted translation
| 夫达摩西来，九年面壁，无多言句，而能直指人心，见性成佛，首开震旦之宗风。后人演唱提持，照用权实，鸣涂毒鼓，挥太阿锋于言象不该之表，形名未兆之先，机如电掣雷奔，谈似河流海注。 | When Bodhidharma came from the West, he faced the wall for nine years. Though he spoke few words, he was able to point directly to the human mind, so that one sees one’s nature and attains Buddhahood. He was the first to establish the Chan tradition in China. Later generations expounded and upheld it, illuminating its provisional and ultimate applications. They sounded the poison drum and wielded the edge of the great sword beyond the reach of words and images, before forms and names had yet arisen. Their responsiveness was like lightning flashing and thunder racing; their discourse like rivers flowing into the sea. |
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| 青莲花纷飘舌本，大狮子吼断十方，穿透百千诸佛耳根，畟跳三十三天空外。究其所归，不过铺荆列棘，遍地生枝，甘草黄莲，自心甘苦耳。然则自利利他，固不在于多言欤。 | Blue lotuses scattered profusely from their tongues; the great lion’s roar resounded throughout the ten directions, piercing the ears of hundreds of thousands of Buddhas and leaping beyond the thirty-three heavens. Yet, when one investigates where it all leads, it is no more than spreading thorns and brambles, with branches growing everywhere: licorice and coptis, the sweetness and bitterness of one’s own mind. Thus, benefiting oneself and benefiting others surely do not depend on many words. |
| 赵州谂禅师，圆证无生法忍，以本分事接人。龙门之桐，高百尺而无枝，朕阅其言句，真所谓皮肤剥落尽，独见一真实者，诚达摩之所护念。 | Chan Master Zhaozhou Congshen fully realized the forbearance of the unborn dharmas and received people through the fundamental matter. The paulownia at Dragon Gate stands a hundred feet high without branches. I have read his sayings: truly, as it is said, when skin and flesh have been entirely stripped away, the one reality alone is revealed. He was indeed one of whom Bodhidharma was mindful and protective. |
| 狮乳一滴，足迸散千斛驴乳，但禅师垂示，如五色珠，若小知浅见，会于言表，则辜负古佛之慈悲，落草之婆心也。观师信手拈来，信口说出，皆令十方智者一时直入如来地，可谓壁立万仞，月印千江。如赵州之接人，诚为直指人心，见性成佛之古佛云。爰录其精粹者著于篇，以示后学，俾知真宗轨范，如是如是尔。 | A single drop of lion’s milk is enough to scatter a thousand measures of donkey’s milk. Yet the Chan master’s teachings are like five-colored pearls. If those of shallow knowledge and limited understanding seek comprehension in the words themselves, they betray the compassion of the ancient Buddhas and their grandmotherly concern in descending into the weeds. Whatever the master casually picked up or freely uttered enabled wise people throughout the ten directions to enter directly, all at once, the ground of the Tathāgata. It may be said that he stood like a cliff ten thousand fathoms high, while the moon’s reflection appeared in a thousand rivers. Zhaozhou’s way of receiving people was truly that of the ancient Buddhas: direct pointing to the human mind, seeing one’s nature and attaining Buddhahood. I have therefore recorded its essential passages in this volume to show later students the model and standard of the true tradition. Thus it is, thus it is. |
| 雍正十一年癸丑五月望日 | Full-moon day of the fifth month, guichou year, the eleventh year of the Yongzheng reign |
