The Sixtieth Letter 第六十封
| 2022-10-21 | Download | AI assisted translation
| 第六十封 |
The Sixtieth Letter |
| 恭敬顶礼师尊： |
With reverence, I prostrate to the Venerable Master: |
| 顶礼佛，顶礼法，顶礼僧。 |
I pay homage to the Buddha, pay homage to the Dharma, and pay homage to the Saṅgha. |
| 弟子最近去广州出了一趟公差，借便朝拜了光孝寺，六榕寺。 |
Recently, this disciple made a business trip to Guangzhou and, taking the opportunity, paid pilgrimage visits to Guangxiao Temple and the Temple of the Six Banyan Trees. |
| 【为何不去南华寺朝拜六祖？】赴穗前，接到了上海某某师兄寄来的２０本难得的法本《中有教授解脱听闻密法》，并接到这位师兄一封信，言明是奉您之命寄给我的。【此书为密宗不修而得法身的秘密法宝。 |
[Why did you not go to Nanhua Temple to pay homage to the Sixth Patriarch?] Before leaving for Guangzhou, I received from a Dharma brother in Shanghai twenty copies of the rare Dharma text Esoteric Teaching of Liberation Through Hearing in the Intermediate State. I also received a letter from this Dharma brother, stating clearly that he was sending them at your instruction. [This book is a secret Dharma treasure of Esoteric Buddhism through which one may obtain the dharmakāya without practice. |
| 但千万不要因说了一句“不修而得”的话，就放弃修习，那就大错特错了。这不过怕你们顾虑今生不能成就而作的一种安心、补救办法。你们要真得大成就，还须尽力习定，勤于观空，消除旧习，方能圆证三身四智。 |
But do not, merely because it says “obtain it without practice,” abandon cultivation. That would be a grave mistake. This is only a means of reassuring you and providing a remedy for your concern that you may not attain realization in this very life. If you truly wish to attain great accomplishment, you must still make every effort to cultivate meditative stability, diligently contemplate emptiness, and eliminate old habitual tendencies; only then can you fully realize the three kāyas and four wisdoms. |
| 禅悟只不过才登初地，后面路途还长，若不专心致志地精修，何能上上升进？！】临行时嘱秀明给这位师兄回一封信，并寄给您100元人民币，以对师尊弘法略有小补。从穗归鹤，发现师尊的函件早已收到，拜读后消融于心。 |
Chan awakening merely marks one’s ascent to the first bhūmi; the road ahead is still long. If you do not devote yourself single-mindedly to intensive cultivation, how can you advance ever higher?!] Before departing, I asked Xiuming to reply to this Dharma brother and to send you 100 yuan as a small contribution toward your propagation of the Dharma. Upon returning from Guangzhou to He, I found that the Venerable Master’s letter had already arrived. After reading it reverently, I absorbed it deeply into my heart. |
| 因弟子修法三年将满，微微泛起急躁情绪，给师尊的最近这几封信颇有流露。师尊不惜眉毛，棒喝交参，已将弟子的不当情绪一扫而光。弟子已会心一笑，断然抛去了这法执，日后天天打坐，时时观心，随缘度日便了。 |
As this disciple is approaching the completion of three years of practice, a slight impatience had arisen, and it showed itself rather clearly in these recent letters to the Venerable Master. Without sparing yourself, you alternated the stick and the shout, sweeping away all of this disciple’s improper feelings at once. This disciple now smiles in understanding and has decisively cast aside this attachment to dharmas. Henceforth, I need only meditate every day, observe the mind at every moment, and live in accordance with conditions. |
| 【净土宗诟禅宗不好，即因后世禅人得少为足，悟了一点理，即夸夸其谈，不事真修，遇事透不过，以致思惑未除，生死不了。古人则不然。 |
[The Pure Land school criticizes the Chan school because Chan practitioners of later generations are content with too little. Having awakened to a small measure of principle, they boast and talk extravagantly, without engaging in genuine cultivation. When they encounter circumstances, they cannot get through them; consequently, their delusions of thought remain uneliminated, and they cannot transcend birth and death. The ancients were not like this. |
| 一经指示，认识本来，即绵密保任，勤除习染，常摄在定，故能于三、五年或十数年乃至二三十年，打成一片，证至八地以上，深得无为妙用。】【六祖大师于悟道后，也隐藏在猎人队伍中十数年，从事保任功夫。 |
Once they received instruction and recognized their original nature, they safeguarded their realization continuously and closely, diligently removed habitual defilements, and constantly maintained meditative stability. Thus, within three or five years, or ten or more years, even twenty or thirty years, they could become continuous and undivided, realize the eighth bhūmi or beyond, and deeply attain the wondrous functioning of non-contrivance.] [After realizing the Way, the Sixth Patriarch also concealed himself among a band of hunters for more than ten years, engaging in the work of safeguarding realization. |
| 今人狂妄，以为一悟便休，不须再做什么功夫了，或者追求神通，走入邪途，以致禅道衰微，良可哀也。】【其实，识得本性，实非难事，都是学人自瞒，苟能于一念不生时，回首一瞥，这是什么？当下即自见了。 |
People today are arrogant, believing that once awakened, everything is finished and no further practice is needed. Or they pursue spiritual powers and enter a deviant path, so that the Way of Chan has declined—a truly lamentable state of affairs.] [In truth, recognizing one’s intrinsic nature is not difficult; it is only that students deceive themselves. If, when not a single thought arises, one turns back for a glance—what is this?—one immediately sees it for oneself. |
| 正是：心境顿消融，方明色与空。欲识本来面，青山白云中。】“石破天惊一鹤飞，黑漫漫夜五更鸡。自从三宿空桑后，不见人间有是非。”这首写在《老残游记》里的诗句，颇可引以自勉。 |
Just as it is said: “Only when mind and circumstances suddenly dissolve does one understand form and emptiness. If you wish to recognize your Original Face, it is amid green mountains and white clouds.” “Rocks shatter and heaven is startled as a lone crane flies; in the pitch-black night, a rooster crows at the fifth watch. Since spending three nights at Empty Mulberry, I have no longer seen right and wrong among humankind.” These lines from The Travels of Lao Can may well be taken as encouragement for oneself. |
| 至于弟子那不当有的急躁情绪，《老残游记》里另一首诗可做写照：“紫阳属和翠虚吟，传响空山霹雳琴。 刹那未除人我相，天花粘满护身云。”【身在海中休觅水，日行山岭莫寻山，莺啼燕语皆相似，莫问前三与后三。】 偶印名片，将名字印成“治郡”，这样也好。【只能治理小小的一个郡，气量太小了！】 |
As for this disciple’s undue impatience, another poem from The Travels of Lao Can aptly portrays it: “Ziyang’s responsive verse accompanies Cui Xu’s chant; like a thunderclap qin, it echoes through empty mountains. In an instant, before the marks of self and others are removed, heavenly flowers cling thickly to the clouds that protect the body.” [Being in the sea, do not seek water; walking amid mountain ridges, do not seek mountains. The calls of orioles and the speech of swallows are all alike; do not ask about the first three or the last three.] I recently had some business cards printed, and my name was printed as “Zhijun” (“govern a prefecture”). That is fine too. [One can govern only one small prefecture—such limited breadth of mind!] |
| 弟子志明顶礼 |
Your disciple, Zhiming, prostrates. |
| 1992年11月7日 |
November 7, 1992 |
| 【永寿童子】哈哈！治郡嫌小，老人是想让老师治理几个佛国吧。 |
[Yongshou Tongzi] Ha ha! Since governing a prefecture is considered too small, the Elder must want the teacher to govern several Buddha lands. |
| 【LVM】名片是我在外出差的时间里单位给印的，待我出差回来，早就印好，没法改了。问题在于我的一句“这样也好”，老人是应此句说的。 |
[LVM] My work unit had the business cards printed while I was away on a business trip. By the time I returned, they had already been printed and could not be changed. The point was my remark, “That is fine too”; the Elder was responding to that remark. |
