18Case 18
問：「如何是心心不異處？」師云：「爾擬問，早異了也，性相各分。道流莫錯！世、出世諸法，皆無自性，亦無生性，但有空名，名字亦空。爾秖麼認他閑名為實，大錯了也。設有，皆是依變之境。有箇菩提依、涅槃依、解脫依、三身依、境智依、菩薩依、佛依，爾向依變國土中覓什麼物？乃至三乘十二分教，皆是拭不淨故紙。佛是幻化身，祖是老比丘，爾還是娘生已否？爾若求佛，即被佛魔攝；爾若求祖，即被祖魔縛；爾若有求皆苦，不如無事。有一般禿比丘，向學人道：『佛是究竟，於三大阿僧祇劫修行果滿，方始成道。』道流！爾若道佛是究竟，緣什麼八十年後向拘尸羅城雙林樹間側臥而死去？佛今何在？明知與我生死不別。爾言三十二相、八十種好是佛，轉輪聖王應是如來，明知是幻化。古人云：『如來舉身相，為順世間情，恐人生斷見，權且立虛名。』假言三十二、八十也，空聲有身非覺體，無相乃真形。
「爾道佛有六通是不可思議。一切諸天、神仙、阿修羅、大力鬼亦有神通，應是佛否？道流莫錯！秖如阿修羅與天帝釋戰，戰敗，領八萬四千眷屬入藕絲孔中藏，莫是聖否？如山僧所舉，皆是業通、依通。夫如佛六通者不然，入色界不被色惑，入聲界不被聲惑，入香界不被香惑，入味界不被味惑，入觸界不被觸惑，入法界不被法惑。所以達六種色、聲、香、味、觸、法皆是空相，不能繫縛。此無依道人，雖是五蘊漏質，便是地行神通。
「道流！真佛無形，真法無相，爾秖麼幻化上頭作模作樣，設求得者，皆是野狐精魅，並不是真佛，是外道見解。夫如真學道人，並不取佛，不取菩薩、羅漢，不取三界殊勝，逈無獨脫，不與物拘。乾坤倒覆，我更不疑；十方諸佛現前，無一念心喜；三塗地獄頓現，無一念心怖。緣何如此？我見諸法空相，變即有，不變即無，三界唯心，萬法唯識，所以夢幻空花，何勞把捉？唯有道流目前現今聽法底人，入火不燒，入水不溺，入三塗地獄如遊園觀，入餓鬼畜生而不受報。緣何如此？無嫌底法。爾若愛聖憎凡，生死海裏沈浮。煩惱由心故有，無心煩惱何拘？不勞分別取相，自然得道須臾。爾擬傍家波波地學得，於三祇劫中終歸生死，不如無事向叢林中床角頭交脚坐。
「道流！如諸方有學人來，主客相見了，便有一句子語，辨前頭善知識。被學人拈出箇機權語路，向善知識口角頭攛過，看爾識不識？爾若識得是境，把得便拋向坑子裏。學人便即尋常，然後便索善知識語，依前奪之。學人云：『上智哉，是大善知識！』即云：『爾大不識好惡。』如善知識把出箇境塊子，向學人面前弄，前人辨得，下下作主，不受境惑。善知識便即現半身，學人便喝。善知識又入一切差別語路中擺撲，學人云：『不識好惡老禿奴。』善知識歎曰：『真正道流。』如諸方善知識，不辨邪正，學人來問菩提、涅槃、三身、境智，瞎老師便與他解說，被他學人罵著，便把棒打他，言：『無禮度。』自是爾善知識無眼，不得嗔他。有一般不識好惡禿奴，即指東劃西，好晴、好雨、好燈籠露柱。爾看眉毛有幾莖？這箇具機緣，學人不會，便即心狂。如是之流，總是野狐精魅、魍魎，被他好學人嗌嗌微笑，言：『瞎老禿奴惑亂他天下人。』道流！出家兒且要學道。秖如山僧往日，曾向毘尼中留心，亦曾於經論尋討，後方知是濟世藥、表顯之說，遂乃一時拋却，即訪道參禪。後遇大善知識，方乃道眼分明，始識得天下老和尚，知其邪正。不是娘生下便會，還是體究練磨，一朝自省。
「道流！爾欲得如法見解，但莫受人惑，向裏向外，逢著便殺：逢佛殺佛，逢祖殺祖，逢羅漢殺羅漢，逢父母殺父母，逢親眷殺親眷，始得解脫，不與物拘，透脫自在。如諸方學道流，未有不依物出來底。山僧向此間，從頭打：手上出來手上打，口裏出來口裏打，眼裏出來眼裏打。未有一箇獨脫出來底，皆是上他古人閑機境。山僧無一法與人，秖是治病解縛。爾諸方道流，試不依物出來，我要共爾商量。十年五歲，並無一人，皆是依草、附葉、竹木、精靈、野狐精魅，向一切糞塊上亂咬。瞎漢！枉消他十方信施，道我是出家兒，作如是見解。向爾道：無佛、無法、無修、無證，秖與麼傍家擬求什麼物？瞎漢！頭上安頭，是爾欠少什麼？
「道流！是爾目前用底，與祖佛不別，秖麼不信，便向外求。莫錯！向外無法，內亦不可得。爾取山僧口裏語，不如休歇無事去。已起者莫續，未起者不要放起，便勝爾十年行脚。約山僧見處，無如許多般，秖是平常著衣、喫飯，無事過時。爾諸方來者，皆是有心求佛、求法、求解脫、求出離三界。癡人！爾要出三界，什麼處去？佛祖是賞繫底名句。爾欲識三界麼？不離爾今聽法底心地。爾一念心貪是欲界，爾一念心瞋是色界，爾一念心癡是無色界，是爾屋裏家具子。三界不自道『我是三界』，還是道流目前靈靈地照燭萬般酌度世界底人，與三界安名。大德！四大色身是無常，乃至脾、胃、肝、膽、髮、毛、爪、齒，唯見諸法空相。爾一念心歇得處，喚作菩提樹；爾一念心不能歇得處，喚作無明樹。無明無住處，無明無始終。爾若念念心歇不得，便上他無明樹，便入六道、四生，披毛、戴角；爾若歇得，便是清淨身界。爾一念不生，便是上菩提樹，三界神通變化，意生化身，法喜禪悅，身光自照，思衣羅綺千重，思食百味具足，更無橫病。菩提無住處，是故無得者。
「道流！大丈夫漢，更疑箇什麼？目前用處，更是阿誰把得便用，莫著名字，號為玄旨。與麼見得，勿嫌底法。古人云：『心隨萬境轉，轉處實能幽，隨流認得性，無喜亦無憂。』道流！如禪宗見解，死活循然，參學之人，大須子細。如主客相見，便有言論往來，或應物現形，或全體作用，或把機權喜怒，或現半身，或乘師子，或乘象王。如有真正學人便喝，先拈出一箇膠盆子，善知識不辨是境，便上他境上作模作樣，學人便喝，前人不肯放，此是膏肓之病，不堪醫，喚作客看主。或是善知識不拈出物，隨學人問處即奪，學人被奪，抵死不放，此是主看客。或有學人應一箇清淨境出善知識前，善知識辨得是境，把得拋向坑裏。學人言：『大好善知識。』即云：『咄哉，不識好惡。』學人便禮拜，此喚作主看主。或有學人披枷帶鎖出善知識前，善知識更與安一重枷鎖，學人歡喜，彼此不辨，呼為客看客。
「大德！山僧如是所舉，皆是辨魔揀異，知其邪正。道流！寔情大難，佛法幽玄，解得可可地。山僧竟日與他說破，學者總不在意，千遍萬遍脚底踏過，黑沒焌地，無一箇形段，歷歷孤明。學人信不及，便向名句上生解，年登半百，秖管傍家負死屍行，檐却檐子天下走，索草鞋錢有日在。大德！山僧說向外無法，學人不會，便即向裏作解，便即倚壁坐，舌拄上齶，湛然不動，取此為是祖門佛法也。大錯！是爾若取不動清淨境為是，爾即認他無明為郎主。古人云：『湛湛黑暗深坑，寔可怖畏。』此之是也。爾若認他動者是，一切草木皆解動，應可是道也。所以動者是風大，不動者是地大，動與不動俱無自性。爾若向動處捉他，他向不動處立；爾若向不動處捉他，他向動處立。譬如潛泉魚，鼓波而自躍。大德！動與不動是二種境，還是無依道人用動、用不動。如諸方學人來，山僧此間作三種根器斷：如中下根器來，我便奪其境，而不除其法；或中上根器來，我便境法俱奪；如上上根器來，我便境法人俱不奪；如有出格見解人來，山僧此間便全體作用，不歷根器。
「大德！到這裏，學人著力處不通風，石火電光即過了也。學人若眼定動，即沒交涉，擬心即差，動念即乖。有人解者，不離目前。大德！爾檐鉢囊屎檐子，傍家走求佛求法，即今與麼馳求底，爾還識渠麼？活撥撥地，秖是勿根株，擁不聚，撥不散，求著即轉遠，不求還在目前，靈音屬耳。若人不信，徒勞百年。
「道流！一剎那間便入華藏世界，入毘盧遮那國土，入解脫國土，入神通國土，入清淨國土，入法界，入穢入淨，入凡入聖，入餓鬼畜生，處處討覓尋皆，不見有生、有死，唯有空名。幻化空花，不勞把捉，得失是非，一時放却。
「道流！山僧佛法的的相承，從麻谷和尚、丹霞和尚、道一和尚、廬山拽石頭和尚，一路行遍天下，無人信得，盡皆起謗。如道一和尚用處純一無雜，學人三百、五百，盡皆不見他意。如廬山和尚自在真正順逆用處，學人不測涯際，悉皆忙然。如丹霞和尚翫珠隱顯，學人來者皆悉被罵。如麻谷用處苦如黃蘗，近皆不得。如石鞏用處向箭頭上覓人，來者皆懼。如山僧今日用處，真正成壞，翫弄神變，入一切境，隨處無事，境不能換。
「但有來求者，我即便出看渠，渠不識我，我便著數般衣，學人生解，一向入我言句：『苦哉，瞎禿子，無眼人，把我著底衣認青、黃、赤、白。』我脫却入清淨境中，學人一見便生忻欲；我又脫却，學人失心，忙然狂走，言：『我無衣。』我即向渠道：『爾識我著衣底人否？』忽爾回頭，認我了也。大德！爾莫認衣，衣不能動，人能著衣。有箇清淨衣，有箇無生衣、菩提衣、涅槃衣，有祖衣，有佛衣。大德！但有聲名文句，皆悉是衣變，從臍輪氣海中鼓激，牙齒敲磕，成其句義，明知是幻化。大德！外發聲語業，內表心所法，以思有念，皆悉是衣。爾秖麼認他著底衣為寔解，縱經塵劫，秖是衣通，三界循還，輪回生死，不如無事，相逢不相識，共語不知名。今時學人不得，蓋為認名字為解，大策子上抄死老漢語，三重五重複子裹，不教人見，道是玄旨，以為保重。大錯！瞎屢生！爾向枯骨上覓什麼汁？有一般不識好惡，向教中取意度商量，成於句義，如把屎塊子向口裏含了，吐過與別人，猶如俗人打傳口令相似，一生虛過也。道我出家，被他問著佛法，便即杜口無詞，眼似漆突，口如楄檐，如此之類，逢彌勒出世，移置他方世界，寄地獄受苦。大德！爾波波地往諸方覓什麼物，踏爾脚板闊？無佛可求，無道可成，無法可得。外求有相佛，與汝不相似。欲識汝本心，非合亦非離。
「道流！真佛無形，真道無體，真法無相，三法混融，和合一處，辨既不得，喚作忙忙業識眾生。」
A monk asked, "What is the place where mind and mind don't differ?"
Linji said, "The instant you frame the question, you've already split them. Nature and form fall into two. Followers of the Way, don't make this mistake. All things, worldly and beyond the world, have no self-nature and no nature of being born. They're only empty names, and the names too are empty. You take these idle names for something real, and that's a vast mistake.
"Even granting there were something, it would be no more than a shifting, dependent state. There's a prop called enlightenment, a prop called nirvana, a prop called liberation, a prop called the three bodies, a prop called object-and-knowledge, a prop called bodhisattva, a prop called Buddha. In this country of shifting props, what are you hunting for? Right down to the three vehicles and the twelve divisions of the teachings, it's all so much paper for wiping off filth. Buddha is a phantom body. The ancestors are old monks. And you, weren't you born from a mother like anyone else? Go seeking Buddha and the Buddha-demon snatches you up. Go seeking the ancestors and the ancestor-demon ties you fast. Any seeking at all is suffering. Better to have nothing to do.
"There's a breed of bald-headed monk who tells students, 'Buddha is the final goal. Only after three immeasurable eons of practice, the fruit ripened, does he attain the Way.' Followers of the Way, if Buddha is the final goal, then why, after eighty years, did he lie down on his side between the twin trees outside Kushinagara and die? Where is Buddha now? Plainly his life and death were no different from mine. You say the thirty-two marks and the eighty fine features make a Buddha. Then a world-ruling king should be a Buddha too. Plainly these are phantoms. An old master said, 'The Buddha showed his bodily marks to suit the feelings of the world. Afraid people would slip into denial, he set up an empty name as a stopgap.' So we say thirty-two marks, eighty features. But a hollow sound with a body is not the awakened essence. No-form is the true form.
"You say Buddha's six powers are beyond imagining. But the gods, spirits, immortals, demigods, and mighty ghosts all have supernatural powers too. Should they be Buddhas? Followers of the Way, don't make this mistake. When the demigod Asura lost his war with the god Indra, he led his eighty-four thousand kin into the hole of a lotus thread and hid. Was that being a sage? The powers I just named are powers of karma, powers leaning on conditions. Buddha's six powers aren't like that. He enters the realm of form and form doesn't fool him, enters the realm of sound and sound doesn't fool him, enters the realms of smell, taste, touch, and mind, and none of them fool him. He sees clean through all six, form and sound and smell and taste and touch and mind, as empty appearances that cannot bind. This person of the Way who leans on nothing, even in a leaky body of the five aggregates, walks the earth with spiritual power.
"Followers of the Way, the true Buddha has no shape, the true Dharma has no form. You're only striking poses on top of phantoms. Whatever you turn up that way is a wild-fox spirit, a goblin, never the true Buddha. That's an outsider's view. The real student of the Way grabs at no Buddha, no bodhisattva, no arhat, none of the so-called glories of the three worlds. He stands utterly alone and free, snagged by nothing. Let heaven and earth turn over, I won't doubt. Let all the Buddhas of the ten directions appear before me, not a flicker of joy. Let the three hells suddenly gape open, not a flicker of fear. Why? Because I see all things as empty appearances. Conditions shift and they exist; conditions hold and they don't. The three worlds are only mind, the ten thousand things only consciousness. So why labor to clutch at dreams, phantoms, flowers in the air?
"Only one thing is real: the person right here in front of me, listening to this teaching now. Fire can't burn him, water can't drown him. He walks into the three hells like strolling a garden, walks among hungry ghosts and animals and takes on none of their fate. Why? Because he finds nothing to refuse. Love the holy and hate the ordinary, and you'll bob up and down in the ocean of life and death. Affliction comes of mind. No mind, and what does affliction grip? Stop slicing things up and grasping at appearances, and the Way is yours in a breath. But run around studying it with this teacher and that, and after three eons you'll still come back to life and death. Better to sit cross-legged in a corner of the meditation hall with nothing to do.
"Followers of the Way, when students come from all over and host and guest size each other up, the student tosses out a phrase to test the teacher, a tricky scrap of word-bait flung past the corner of his mouth, to see whether you catch it. Recognize it for the baited trap it is, and you grab it and pitch it down a hole. Then the student settles, and asks the teacher to speak, and again you snatch it away. The student says, 'Brilliant. What a great teacher.' And you say, 'You can't even tell good from bad.' Or a teacher holds up a lump of some state and dangles it in front of a student. The student sees it for what it is, stays master through and through, and the bait doesn't fool him. Then the teacher shows half his body, and the student shouts. The teacher tries again, thrashing through every kind of fancy talk, and the student says, 'You bald old fool who can't tell good from bad.' And the teacher sighs, 'A true follower of the Way.'
"But teachers everywhere can't tell straight from crooked. A student comes asking about enlightenment, nirvana, the three bodies, object-and-knowledge, and the blind old teacher launches into an explanation. The student curses him, and he grabs a stick and hits him, crying, 'How rude!' That's your own blindness, teacher. You've no right to be angry at him. Then there's another breed of bald fool who can't tell good from bad. He points east and waves west: 'Fine weather, fine rain, fine lanterns and pillars!' Look, how many hairs in those eyebrows? When a student with real readiness won't play along, the teacher goes out of his mind. Such people are all wild-fox spirits, goblins, ghouls, and the good students just snicker at them and call them blind old bald fools throwing the whole world into confusion.
"Followers of the Way, those who've left home must learn the Way. Take me. In the old days I put my heart into the monastic discipline, and I dug through the sutras and treatises besides. Later I saw they were only medicine for the world's ills, words pointing at something, so I threw the whole lot down at once and went looking for the Way, taking up Chan. Then I met a great teacher, and only then did my eye for the Way come clear, and I could read the whole world at last. A real teacher who can tell straight from crooked isn't born knowing it. It comes of grinding away until one day you wake to yourself.
"Followers of the Way, if you want true understanding, just let no one fool you. Whatever you meet, inside or out, kill it. Meet a Buddha, kill the Buddha. Meet an ancestor, kill the ancestor. Meet an arhat, kill the arhat. Meet your parents, kill your parents. Meet your kin, kill your kin. Only then are you free, snagged by nothing, slipped clean through, your own master. Students of the Way everywhere, not one has come out without leaning on something. Here, I hit them right off the top. Out through the hands, I hit the hands. Out through the mouth, I hit the mouth. Out through the eyes, I hit the eyes. Not one has come out alone and free. They're all climbing onto the dead tricks and traps of the old masters. I've no Dharma to hand anyone. I only cure sickness and untie knots. Students of the Way from everywhere, try coming out without leaning on anything. I'd like to talk it over with you. In five years, ten years, not one has done it. They all lean on grasses, cling to leaves, bamboo, trees, spirits, wild-fox phantoms. They bite wildly at every clod of dung, the blind fools, squandering the gifts of the faithful from the ten directions, and they call themselves monks while holding views like that. So I tell them: no Buddha, no Dharma, nothing to practice, nothing to prove. What are you chasing, off to the side like that? Setting a head on top of your head, you blind fools. What is it you lack?
"Followers of the Way, what's at work in you right now is no different from the Buddhas and ancestors. You just won't believe it, so you go looking outside. Make no mistake. There's no Dharma outside, and no laying hold of it inside either. Don't take the words from my mouth. Better to rest and have nothing to do. What's already arisen, don't carry on. What hasn't arisen, don't let it start. That beats ten years of pilgrimage. The way I see it, there's nothing to all of it. Just be ordinary: put on your clothes, eat your food, pass the time with nothing to do. You who come from all over, every one of you has a mind set on seeking Buddha, seeking Dharma, seeking liberation, seeking a way out of the three worlds. You fools. You want out of the three worlds, and go where? Buddha and ancestor are pretty names to chain you up.
"Want to know the three worlds? They're nowhere but in the very mind listening to this teaching now. One greedy thought in your mind is the world of desire. One angry thought is the world of form. One deluded thought is the formless world. They're the furniture in your own house. The three worlds don't announce, 'We are the three worlds.' It's you, followers of the Way, the person right here, bright and alive, taking the measure of the whole world, who pins the names on the three worlds.
"Worthy ones, this body of the four elements is impermanent, right down to spleen and stomach, liver and gallbladder, hair and nails and teeth. See only that all things are empty appearances. Wherever your mind can rest a single thought, call that the bodhi tree. Wherever it can't, call that the tree of ignorance. Ignorance has no dwelling place, no beginning and no end. If thought after thought your mind can't rest, you climb the tree of ignorance, you fall into the six paths and the four kinds of birth, you grow fur and horns. If your mind can rest, that's the pure body and realm. The moment one thought stops arising, you climb the bodhi tree, work miracles across the three worlds, take any shape you please. Joy in the Dharma, bliss in meditation, your own light shining of itself. Want clothes, a thousand layers of silk. Want food, a hundred flavors spread before you. And never a sudden illness. Enlightenment has no dwelling place, and so no one attains it.
"Followers of the Way, what's a real man got left to doubt? Right here in front of you, at work, who is it that takes hold and uses it? Don't get stuck on the names. Call it the hidden meaning. See it so, and there's nothing left to refuse. An old master said, 'Mind turns with the ten thousand circumstances, and the turning runs deep. Know your nature in the flow, and there's neither joy nor sorrow.'
"Followers of the Way, in the view of the Chan school, life and death run in order, and the student must look hard. When host and guest meet, words pass back and forth. One may take a shape to fit the moment, may act with the whole body, may wield a trick of anger or delight, may show half a body, may ride a lion, may ride an elephant. A real student shouts and first holds up a bowl of glue. The teacher can't tell it's a trap and falls to striking poses on top of it. The student shouts again, and won't let go. This is a sickness in the marrow, past curing. It's called the guest examining the host.
"Or the teacher holds nothing up, and snatches away whatever the student asks. The student, robbed, holds on for dear life. This is the host examining the guest.
"Or a student steps out before the teacher with some pure state. The teacher sees it for a trap and throws it down a hole. The student says, 'What a fine teacher.' The teacher says, 'Tsk, you can't tell good from bad.' The student bows. This is the host examining the host.
"Or a student steps out before the teacher in a cangue and chains, and the teacher loads on a second cangue and chains, and the student is delighted. Neither one can tell what's going on. This is the guest examining the guest.
"Worthy ones, the things I keep holding up are all for sorting out demons and weeding out frauds, for telling straight from crooked. Followers of the Way, the truth of it is very hard. The Buddha-Dharma is deep and dark, and barely can it be understood. I spend whole days spelling it out, and the students pay no mind at all. A thousand times, ten thousand times they trample right over it. Pitch dark, no shape to it, yet vivid and shining alone. The students can't quite trust it, so they go cooking up understanding out of names and phrases. They turn fifty, and all they do is run around hauling a corpse on their shoulders, lugging their burden across the world. The day will come when they're billed for their straw sandals.
"Worthy ones, I say there's no Dharma outside, and the student doesn't get it, so he turns inward to make sense of it. He props himself against a wall, sits, tongue to the roof of his mouth, perfectly still, and takes that for the Buddha-Dharma of the ancestors. Big mistake. Take that motionless, pure state for the real thing, and you've made ignorance itself your master. An old master said, 'A pitch-black bottomless pit, truly something to dread.' That's exactly it. And take the one that moves for the real thing, and, well, grass and trees all move, so they should be the Way too. So: what moves is the wind element, what's still is the earth element. Moving and still both have no self-nature. Try to catch him where he moves, and he stands where it's still. Try to catch him where it's still, and he stands where it moves. Like a fish hidden in a spring, beating the waves, leaping out on its own. Worthy ones, moving and still are two states, and the person of the Way who leans on nothing uses the moving and uses the still.
"When students come from all over, I sort them here by three grades of capacity. If one of middling or lower capacity comes, I snatch his state away but leave his Dharma. If one of middling-to-high capacity comes, I snatch away both state and Dharma. If one of the very highest capacity comes, I snatch away state, Dharma, and person, all three. And if one comes whose view is off the charts, here I act with the whole body and don't bother grading capacity at all.
"Worthy ones, at this point the student's effort lets no breath of air through. It's over in a flash of flint-spark, a streak of lightning. If the student's eye so much as wavers, there's no connection. Try to figure it with your mind and you've missed it. Stir a thought and it's gone wrong. Whoever gets it is never far from what's right in front of him. Worthy ones, you haul your bowl-bag and your dung-sack of a body, running off to the side to seek Buddha, seek Dharma. This very thing chasing after, right now, do you know who it is? Vivid and alive, with no root and no stem. You can't gather it up, can't scatter it. Seek it and it backs away; don't seek it and it's right in front of you. Its sacred sound fills your ears. If a man won't trust it, he wastes a hundred years.
"Followers of the Way, in a single instant you enter the Lotus-Treasury world, enter the land of Vairochana, the land of liberation, the land of supernatural power, the pure land, the Dharma-realm. You enter the foul and the pure, the ordinary and the holy, the hungry ghosts and the animals. Search high and low everywhere, and you find no birth and no death anywhere, only empty names. Phantoms, flowers in the air, no need to clutch at them. Gain and loss, right and wrong, let them all go at once.
"Followers of the Way, my Buddha-Dharma comes down a clear, unbroken line, from master Magu, master Danxia, master Daoyi, master Lushan, master Shigong. One road, walked the whole world over, and no one believed them. Every one of them was slandered. Take master Daoyi: his way of working was pure and unmixed, and three hundred, five hundred students couldn't catch his meaning. Take master Lushan: free and true, working with the grain and against it, and the students couldn't sound his depths and were all at a loss. Take master Danxia: playing with the pearl, now hidden, now shown, and every student who came got cursed. Take Magu: his way of working was bitter as the huangbo tree, and no one could get near. Take Shigong: his way of working was to hunt for a man at the arrow's point, and everyone who came was terrified. As for my way of working today: true making and breaking, playing with transformations, entering every state, at ease wherever I am, and no state can move me.
"Whenever someone comes seeking, I come out and look him over, but he doesn't know me. So I put on a few different robes, and the student starts making sense of them and chases right into my words: 'How awful, the blind bald fool, the sightless one.' I grab the robe he's got me in and he sees blue, yellow, red, white. Then I strip it off and step into a pure state, and one look and the student goes all eager and longing. Then I strip that off too, and the student loses his mind, runs around frantic, crying, 'I've no robe!' And I say to him, 'Do you know the man who wears the robes?' All at once he turns his head, and he knows me.
"Worthy ones, don't take the robe for the man. The robe can't move on its own; the man wears the robe. There's a pure robe, a no-birth robe, a bodhi robe, a nirvana robe, an ancestor robe, a Buddha robe. Worthy ones, anything with sound or name, word or phrase, is nothing but a change of robe, stirred up from the sea of breath at the navel, knocked into shape by clacking teeth, made into phrases and meanings. Plainly it's all phantoms. Worthy ones, the speech that goes out and the mental states marked within, the thinking that holds a thought, all of it is robes. Take the robe somebody's wearing for real understanding, and through endless eons it's nothing but knowing robes, round and round the three worlds in the cycle of life and death. Better to have nothing to do: meet and not know each other, talk together and never learn each other's names. Students these days fail because they take names for understanding. They copy some dead old fool's words into a fat notebook, wrap it in three or five layers of cloth, won't let anyone see it, call it the hidden meaning, and treasure it. Dead wrong, you blind fools. What juice are you hunting in dry bones?
"There's a breed who can't tell good from bad. They pick guesses out of the teachings, work them into phrases and meanings, like holding a clod of dung in your mouth and spitting it out for somebody else. Like villagers passing a whispered message down the line, a wasted life. They say, 'I've left home,' and the moment someone asks them about the Buddha-Dharma, they shut their mouths, no words, eyes like soot-holes, mouths slack as a yoke. People like this, even when Maitreya comes into the world, will be shipped off to another world and parked in hell to suffer. Worthy ones, what are you running all over the place to find, until you've walked your feet flat? There's no Buddha to seek, no Way to attain, no Dharma to get. Seek an outward Buddha with form, and it'll look nothing like you. Want to know your own true mind? It's neither joined to you nor apart from you.
"Followers of the Way, the true Buddha has no shape, the true Way has no body, the true Dharma has no form. The three blend and fuse into one place. Where you can't sort them out, that's what we call the muddled, busy karmic-conscious crowd."