11Nothing to Do示眾

師示眾云：「道流！切要求取真正見解，向天下橫行，免被這一般精魅惑亂。無事是貴人，但莫造作，秖是平常。爾擬向外傍家求過覓脚手，錯了也。秖擬求佛，佛是名句。爾還識馳求底麼？三世十方佛祖出來，也秖為求法。如今參學道流，也秖為求法。得法始了，未得依前輪回五道。云何是法？法者是心法，心法無形，通貫十方，目前現用。人信不及，便乃認名認句，向文字中求意度佛法，天地懸殊。道流！山僧說法，說什麼法？說心地法，便能入凡、入聖，入淨、入穢，入真、入俗。要且不是爾真俗凡聖，能與一切真俗凡聖安著名字，真俗凡聖與此人安著名字不得。道流！把得便用，更不著名字，號之為玄旨。山僧說法，與天下人別，秖如有箇文殊、普賢出來，目前各現一身問法，纔道「咨和尚」，我早辨了也。老僧穩坐，更有道流來相見時，我盡辨了也。何以如此？秖為我見處別，外不取凡聖，內不住根本，見徹更不疑謬。」

Linji addressed the assembly: "Followers of the Way! What you need above all is a true and clear eye. Get that, and you can walk straight through the world, free of all the goblins and tricksters out to lead you astray. The one with nothing to do, that's the one worth being. Don't force anything. Just be ordinary.

You go running off to the neighbor's house, hunting for some technique, some helping hand. Mistake. You think you're chasing the Buddha, but 'Buddha' is only a word, a label. Do you even know what it is that does all the chasing? Every buddha and ancestor of past, present, and future came into the world for one thing: to seek the Dharma. And you followers studying the Way today are here for that same one thing. Get the Dharma and you're finished. Miss it, and you go on spinning through the same five rounds of rebirth as before.

What is this Dharma? It is the dharma of mind. Mind has no shape. It runs through all directions. It works right here in front of you, this instant. But people won't trust it that far, so they grab at names, grab at words, dig through old texts to measure out the Buddha's meaning. They've missed it by the width of heaven and earth.

Followers of the Way! When I preach the Dharma, what is it I preach? I preach the Dharma of the mind-ground. It can enter the ordinary and the holy, the pure and the filthy, the real and the everyday. But here is the point: your 'real' and 'everyday,' your 'ordinary' and 'holy' cannot pin a name on every other real, everyday, ordinary, and holy thing. Real, everyday, ordinary, holy: none of them can pin a name on this person.

Followers of the Way! Lay hold of it and use it, and never mind sticking labels on it. That is what I call the hidden point. The way I preach the Dharma is unlike anyone else under heaven. Say a Manjushri and a Samantabhadra showed up right in front of me, each appearing in the flesh to ask about the Dharma. The moment they opened with 'A question for you, master,' I'd already have them sized up. I sit here at ease, and when another follower comes to see me, I've got him pegged through and through. Why? Because the way I see is different. Outside, I don't grab at ordinary or holy. Inside, I don't settle into any root or ground. I see clean through, with no more doubt, no more mistakes."

Pointer

"Followers of the Way" is just how Linji addresses his monks. His whole pitch here is an anti-pitch: stop hunting for a special technique or holy destination, because the hunting itself is the disease, and the thing doing the hunting is already what you're chasing. He keeps coming back to one jab about labels, and it's the key to the talk: "Buddha" and "Dharma" are only words, and the awareness that pins names on everything can't itself be named, so quit trying to label it and just use it. The flex about Manjushri and Samantabhadra, the two celebrity bodhisattvas of Buddhism, is pointed, he says he'd have even those heavyweights sized up the instant they opened their mouths, because he isn't grading anyone against "holy" versus "ordinary" in the first place. This is the "no rank" of case 3 turned into a way of meeting people: nothing outranks the one already in front of him.