22Case 22
問：「如何是五無間業？」師云：「殺父、害母、出佛身血、破和合僧、焚燒經像等，此是五無間業。」云：「如何是父？」師云：「無明是父。爾一念心求起滅處不得，如響應空，隨處無事，名為殺父。」云：「如何是母？」師云：「貪愛為母。爾一念心入欲界中求其貪愛，唯見諸法空相，處處無著，名為害母。」云：「如何是出佛身血？」師云：「爾向清淨法界中，無一念心生解，便處處黑暗，是出佛身血。」云：「如何是破和合僧？」師云：「爾一念心正達煩惱結使，如空無所依，是破和合僧。」云：「如何是焚燒經像？」師云：「見因緣空、心空、法空，一念決定斷，逈然無事，便是焚燒經像。大德！若如是達得，免被他凡聖名礙。爾一念心，秖向空拳指上生寔解，根境法中虛揑怪，自輕而退屈，言：『我是凡夫，他是聖人。』禿屢生！有甚死急？披他師子皮，却作野干鳴。大丈夫漢不作丈夫氣息，自家屋裏物不肯信，秖麼向外覓，上他古人閑名句，倚陰博陽，不能特達，逢境便緣，逢塵便執，觸處惑起，自無准定。
「道流！莫取山僧說處。何故？說無憑據，一期間圖畫虛空，如彩畫像等喻。道流！莫將佛為究竟，我見猶如廁孔；菩薩、羅漢盡是枷鎖、縛人底物。所以文殊仗劍殺於瞿曇，鴦掘持刀害於釋氏。道流！無佛可得，乃至三乘、五性、圓頓教迹，皆是一期藥病相治，並無實法。設有，皆是相似，表顯路布，文字差排，且如是說。
「道流！有一般禿子，便向裏許著功，擬求出世之法，錯了也。若人求佛，是人失佛；若人求道，是人失道；若人求祖，是人失祖。大德莫錯！我且不取爾解經論，我亦不取爾國王大臣，我亦不取爾辯似懸河，我亦不取爾聰明智慧，唯要爾真正見解。「道流！設解得百本經論，不如一箇無事底阿師。爾解得，即輕蔑他人，勝負修羅，人我無明，長地獄業，如善星比丘解十二分教，生身陷地獄，大地不容，不如無事休歇去。飢來喫飯，睡來合眼，愚人笑我，智乃知焉。道流！莫向文字中求，心動疲勞，吸冷氣無益，不如一念緣起無生，超出三乘權學菩薩。
「大德！莫因循過日。山僧往日，未有見處時，黑漫漫地。光陰不可空過，腹熱心忙，奔波訪道，後還得力，始到今日，共道流如是話度。勸諸道流，莫為衣食，看世界易過，善知識難遇，如優曇花，時一現耳。
「儞諸方聞道有箇臨濟老漢出來，便擬問難，教語不得，被山僧全體作用，學人空開得眼，口總動不得，懵然不知以何答我。我向伊道：『龍象蹴踏，非驢所堪。』爾諸處秖指胸點肋，道我解禪、解道，三箇兩箇到這裏不奈何。咄哉！爾將這箇身心到處簸兩片皮，誑謼閭閻，喫鐵棒有日在，非出家兒，盡向阿修羅界攝。
「夫如至理之道，非諍論而求激揚，鏗鏘以摧外道。至於佛祖相承，更無別意。設有言教，落在化儀三乘、五性、人天因果。如圓頓之教，又且不然，童子善財皆不求過。大德！莫錯用心，如大海不停死屍。秖麼擔却擬天下走，自起見障，以礙於心。日上無雲，麗天普照，眼中無翳，空裏無花。道流！爾欲得如法，但莫生疑。展則彌綸法界，收則絲髮不立，歷歷孤明，未曾欠少。眼不見，耳不聞，喚作什麼物？古人云：『說似一物則不中。』爾但自家看，更有什麼？說亦無盡，各自著力。珍重。」
A monk asked, "What are the five sins with no reprieve?"
Linji said, "Killing your father, murdering your mother, drawing the Buddha's blood, breaking up the harmony of the community, burning the sutras and images. Those are the five sins with no reprieve."
"And what is the father?"
Linji said, "Ignorance is the father. The instant your mind goes looking for where things start and stop and comes up empty, like an echo answering empty space, at ease wherever you are: that is killing the father."
"What is the mother?"
Linji said, "Craving is the mother. The instant your mind dives into the realm of desire hunting for its cravings and sees nothing but the empty shape of things, with nothing anywhere to grab onto: that is murdering the mother."
"What is drawing the Buddha's blood?"
Linji said, "In the pure dharma-realm you let no single thought of understanding arise, so you stand surrounded by darkness. That is drawing the Buddha's blood."
"What is breaking up the harmony of the community?"
Linji said, "The instant your mind sees straight through the knots and shackles of affliction, with nothing to lean on, empty as space: that is breaking up the community."
"What is burning the sutras and images?"
Linji said, "When you see that cause and effect are empty, mind is empty, things are empty, and in a single instant you cut it all off dead, free and clear with nothing left to do: that is burning the sutras and images.
"Friends, see it like this and no one's labels, 'ordinary,' 'holy,' can trip you up. But you spend your whole lives taking an empty fist or a pointing finger for something real, conjuring ghosts out of the senses and their objects, putting yourselves down and backing off. 'I'm just an ordinary man, he's the saint.' You bald-headed fools! What's the hurry? You dress up in a lion's skin and yelp like a fox. You have a man's body and won't breathe like a man. You won't trust the treasure in your own house, so you go scrounging for it outside, chasing some dead master's pet phrases, betting on shadows instead of sunlight, never breaking through on your own. Meet a situation and you tangle in it, meet some dust and you grab it, stirring up confusion everywhere, never settled.
"Followers of the Way, don't take what I say for gospel. Why not? Because it has nothing to back it up. It is a picture sketched on empty space for the moment, like a painted figure, no more.
"Followers of the Way, don't make the Buddha your final goal. The way I see him, he is a hole in an outhouse. Bodhisattvas and arhats are nothing but chains and shackles to bind you. That is why Manjushri took up a sword against Gautama, and Angulimala went at Shakyamuni with a blade. Followers of the Way, there is no Buddha to get. The three vehicles, the five natures, the perfect-and-sudden teachings and all their traces are medicine for the moment, to treat one particular disease. None of it is real. And where there is something, it is all appearances, signposts laid out, words arranged on the surface. That is all it ever is.
"Followers of the Way, there's a certain kind of bald fool who pours all his effort inward, trying to find some way past the world. Dead wrong. Look for the Buddha and you lose the Buddha. Look for the Way and you lose the Way. Look for the ancestors and you lose the ancestors. Friends, don't get it wrong. I don't care that you can explain the sutras and treatises. I don't care that you're a king or a minister. I don't care that you can talk like a rushing river. I don't care how clever and sharp you are. The one thing I want is your true, straight insight.
"Followers of the Way, say you could explain a hundred sutras and treatises. You'd still be worse off than one plain teacher with nothing to do. Once you can explain things you start sneering at everyone else, fighting to win like a war-god, breeding ignorance about self and other, piling up hell-karma. Take the monk Good Star: he could explain the whole canon, and he fell into hell alive, the earth itself refusing to hold him. Better to have nothing to do and rest. Hungry, you eat. Tired, you close your eyes. Fools laugh at me, but the wise understand. Followers of the Way, don't go searching in words. It wears the mind out and tires you, and gulping cold air gets you nowhere. Better to see that a single thought arising has no birth in it at all. That puts you past the bodhisattvas of the three vehicles with all their borrowed learning.
"Friends, don't drift through your days. Back when I had no insight it was pitch black all around me, but time can't be wasted, so with my belly burning and my heart racing I ran everywhere chasing the Way. Later I got some traction, and that is how I came to be here, talking with you like this. I urge you, friends, don't do it all for food and clothes. The world slips by easily, and a true teacher is hard to find, rare as the udumbara flower that blooms once in an age.
"You hear all over that there's some old man named Linji, and you come thinking you'll stump me with hard questions and leave me speechless. But I meet you with my whole being, and the student only stands there blinking, mouth frozen shut, too dazed to know how to answer me. So I tell him, 'A dragon-elephant's stride is more than a donkey can take.' Everywhere you go you thump your chests and poke your ribs: 'I get Chan, I get the Way.' Two or three of you show up here and you're helpless. Bah! You haul that body and mind of yours around flapping your two lips, lying to everyone in town. The day is coming when you'll eat the iron rod. You're no monks. You all belong in the realm of the war-gods.
"The Way at its deepest is not reached by arguing, or by clanging slogans to crush the heretics. As for what the buddhas and ancestors hand down, there is nothing special to it. Any teachings there are fall under the methods of instruction: the three vehicles, the five natures, the cause and effect of humans and gods. The perfect-and-sudden teaching is different even from that. The boy Sudhana never went looking for anything. Friends, don't misuse your minds. Be like the great ocean, which won't keep a corpse afloat. You just shoulder your dead body and go running around the world, raising your own blinders to block your own mind. No clouds in the sky, the bright sun shining everywhere; no film on the eye, no flowers in the air. Followers of the Way, if you want to be as you should, just don't breed doubt. Spread it out and it fills the whole dharma-realm; pull it in and not a hair stands. Vivid, alone, shining, never lacking a thing. The eye can't see it, the ear can't hear it. So what do you call it? An old master said, 'Call it any one thing and you've already missed.' Just look for yourself. What else is there? Talk of it never ends. Each of you, put your own back into it. Take care."