Foguo Yuanwu's Blue Cliff Record, Fascicle Ten (End)

雪竇頌古百則。叢林學道詮要也。其間取譬經論或儒家文史。以發明此事。非具眼宗匠時為後學擊揚剖析。則無以知之。

Xuedou's Verses on Old Cases in a hundred cases are the essential explanation for those studying the Way in the monasteries. In them he draws analogies from the sutras and treatises or from the Confucian literature and histories to bring this matter to light. Unless a master with the eye strikes up and analyzes them from time to time for later students, there is no way to know them.

圜悟老師。在成都時。予與諸人請益其說。師後住夾山道林。復為學徒扣之。凡三提宗綱。語雖不同。其旨一也。門人掇而錄之。既二十年矣。師未甞過而問焉。流傳四方。或致踳駁。諸方且因其言以其道不能尋繹之。而妄有改作。則此書遂廢矣。學者幸諦其傳焉。

When Master Yuanwu was in Chengdu, I and others asked for his instruction on them. Later the Master resided at Mount Jia and Daolin, and again students questioned him about them. Altogether he took up the school's main thread three times, and though the words differ, the point is one. His disciples gathered and recorded it, and twenty years have already passed; the Master never reviewed it again. It has spread in all directions and perhaps become jumbled and contradictory; some places, on the basis of its words, cannot trace its Way, and make arbitrary alterations, and then this book will be abandoned. I hope students will carefully examine its transmission.

宣和乙巳春暮上休。𭷔人關友無黨記。

Written at the end of spring in the year yiyi of the Xuanhe era, at the first rest day, by Guan Youwudang of Zhiyuan.

雪竇頌古百則圜悟重下注腳。單示叢林。永垂宗旨經也。學人機鋒捷出。大慧密室勘辨。知無實詣。毀梓不傳權也。此書諸佛正眼列祖大機。兩經鉗鎚。一無瑕纇。茲欲與大慧長書並駕。同圜悟心要兼行。揭杲日於迷途。指南針於慧海。快然一覩。開彼群愚。相與圓成。不無利益。幸甚。

Xuedou's Verses on Old Cases in a hundred cases, to which Yuanwu again added commentary, were shown solely to the monasteries and left behind as an eternal teaching of the school; this is the sutra. When the sharpness of students came out swift, Dahui examined them in his secret room, knew there was no real attainment, destroyed the printing blocks and did not transmit it; this is expedient means. This book contains the correct eye of all Buddhas and the great mechanisms of the successive patriarchs; passing through the tongs and hammer of both the sutra and the expedient, it has not a single flaw. Here we wish to set it side by side with Dahui's Long Letters and circulate it together with Yuanwu's Essentials of Mind, raising a bright sun on the road of the deluded and a south-pointing needle in the sea of wisdom. If one sees it with pleasure, it opens the many fools and, in mutual accomplishment, brings no little benefit. How fortunate.

右伏以。十七歲便悟雲門睦州。可道是口頭三昧。二百年不見碧巖雪竇。忽遭渠手下一交。怎忘得弓冶裘箕。莫斷卻兒孫種草。隨人去腳跟後轉。誰下得釣龍鉤。有箇具眼目底來。不看作繫驢橛。此事當如筏喻。他時自會筌忘。家家門戶透長安。前者呼後者應。種種因緣歸大數。昔之廢今之興。莫怪山僧口多。終是老婆心切。不讀東土書。安知西來意。重興一代宗風。雖無南去雁。看取北來魚。便有十分消息。持同文印。讀無盡燈。謹疏。

I humbly submit: At seventeen he awakened to Yunmen and Muzhou, and one may say it was only the samadhi of the mouth. For two hundred years the Blue Cliff and Xuedou were not seen, and suddenly one meets that fellow's exchange; how can one forget the bow-maker's son and the furrier's son? Do not cut off the seed of descendants. Following people and turning at their heels, who can cast the hook that angles for a dragon? If there is someone with an eye, let him not see it as a post for tethering a donkey. This matter should be taken like the parable of the raft; one day he will understand it and forget the fish trap. Every household's gate leads through to Chang'an; the first call and the later answer; all kinds of causes and conditions return to a great number. What was abandoned in the past is revived now; do not blame this mountain monk for saying much, for in the end it is only grandmotherly kindness. If one has not read the books of the Eastern Land, how does one know the meaning of the coming from the west? Reviving the school style of a generation: though there are no wild geese flying south, look at the fish that come from the north, and there will be full news. Holding the same-script seal, reading the inexhaustible lamp. Respectfully submitted.

今月日疏

Submitted on this month and day.

圓悟老祖居夾山時。集成此書。欲天下後世知有佛祖玄奧。豈小補哉。老妙喜深患學者不根於道溺於知解。由是毀之。謂其父子之間矛盾。可乎。今嵎中張居士重為板行。果何謂哉。覽者宜自擇焉。大德壬寅中秋。住天童第七世法孫比丘。淨日拜手謹書。

When Old Patriarch Yuanwu lived at Mount Jia, he compiled this book, wishing the world and later ages to know the profound mystery of the Buddhas and Patriarchs; was it a small help? Old Miaoxi, deeply troubled that students were not rooted in the Way and sank into intellectual understanding, destroyed it; to say that there is contradiction between father and son, is that acceptable? Now Layman Zhang of Yuzhong has had the blocks cut again; what is the reason? Let readers choose for themselves. Mid-autumn of the year renyin in the Dade era, written respectfully by the monk Jingri, seventh-generation Dharma grandson, residing at Tiantong.

圜悟禪師。評唱雪竇和尚頌古一百則。剖決玄微。抉剔幽邃。顯列祖之機用。開後學之心源。況妙智虛凝。神機默運。晶旭輝而玄扃洞照。圓蟾升而幽室朗明。豈淺識而能致極哉。後大慧禪師。因學人入室。下語頗異。疑之才勘而邪鋒自挫。再鞠而納欵。自降曰。我碧巖集中記來。實非有悟。因慮其後不明根本。專尚語言以圖口捷。由是火之以救斯弊也。然成此書。火此書。其用心則一。豈有二哉。嵎中張明遠偶獲寫本後冊。又獲雪堂刊本及蜀本。校訂訛舛。刊成此書。流通萬古。使上根大智之士。一覽而頓開本心。直造無疑之地。豈小補云乎哉。延祐丁巳迎佛會日。徑山住持比丘。𭤔陵拜書以為後序。

Chan Master Yuanwu's commentary on Master Xuedou's Verses on Old Cases in a hundred cases resolves the profound and subtle and picks out the hidden and deep, displaying the workings of the patriarchs and opening the mind-source of later students. Moreover, with wondrous wisdom empty and still and spiritual mechanisms silently turning, it is like a bright dawn that lights up the dark gate, or a full moon rising that brightens the secluded room; how could shallow knowledge reach its ultimate? Later Chan Master Dahui, when students came into his room and gave words that were quite strange, suspected it, and just upon testing, their false sharpness was blunted; on second questioning they confessed and surrendered, saying: 'I remembered it from the Blue Cliff Collection; I did not truly awaken.' Fearing that later they would not understand the root and would exclusively esteem words for the sake of quick speech, he burned it to save this ill. Yet making this book and burning this book had one intention; how could there be two? Zhang Mingyuan of Yuzhong happened to obtain the later volume of a manuscript, and also obtained the Xuetang printing and the Shu edition, collated the errors and discrepancies, and had the book cut and completed, to circulate for ten thousand ages, so that those of superior capacity and great wisdom, on one reading, may suddenly open their original mind and go straight to the ground of no doubt. How could one call it a small help? Written respectfully as a later preface on the day of the Buddha-welcoming assembly in the year dingsi of the Yanyou era, by the monk (name illegible) from Lingling, abbot of Jingshan.

儒門子貢極有功於東家聖人。藉令良馬見鞭影而奔。皆如瞠若乎後之顏子。吾聖師遊乎何言之天久矣。靈山會上。四眾海集。世尊拈花宗旨。諸人罔措。獨迦葉尊者。微為之破顏。與吾教中一唯之外口耳俱喪。同一頓徹懸悟。當時曾參。不直下剖擊忠恕之秘鑰。豈惟門人之惑滋甚。千載之下。何以祛一貫之迷雲乎。異時成都佛果圜悟老禪。笏夾山丈室。拈提雪竇頌古百則。其大弟子杲上座。懼學人泥於言句。辜負從上諸祖。取老和尚舌頭。一截併付烈焰。煙而颺之拉𣜂堆。自以巨壑太虛投置毫滴。如古德德山賣弄油餈婆前。此疏鈔已埃冷而無餘矣。野火燒不盡。春風吹又生。花落碧巖。陽坡如繡。歷過去劫。死灰復然。不知何許。許多葛藤。一一從嵎中張居士手栽無影樹子上。全體敗露。直得般若無說諸天雨花。百七八十年。衲僧驀地。橫穿鼻孔。從前不曾嗅底寶燻。一旦水湧雲蒸。於八萬四千毛孔。悉普悉遍。可謂甚深希有。難值難遇之事。已而居士二子得心疾。或謂。勤寶經杲上座燬板。居士不當拾遺燼。而日月光景之故。受如是報。居士者疑其說。以質於予。予謂。圜悟門人人人而杲上座。碧巖自碧。何得有說杲上座。見月亡指。遂乃追尤古佛。毒燎亙天。倒卻剎竿。不放一綫。彼未甞識月者。誰將乘一指而示之。或者又謂。杲上座火此書。盟之社鬼者深重。居士二子之患正坐此。予謂。當杲上座灼然秉炬時。煉得故紙通紅。何緣密室通風。老勤巴命門舌根。別自有不壞處。一星迸散。明月空山。張居士那裡得這消息來。把天然一段西蜀錦機。依舊織作舊日花樣。意者主林神陰為之地。訶護至今。料亦是此書合出世因緣時節。清涼池上。針芥相逢。則書寫讀誦。為人演說之功。應獲殊勝福德。何況金石刻鏤。展轉流佈。居士二子之心疾根本。本不在此。客作漢。妄以情識卜度。

In the Confucian school, Zigong did great service to the sage of the east house. If a fine horse sprang forward at the shadow of the whip, all would be like Yan Zi staring in awe behind the Master. My holy teacher had long roamed in the heaven of no words. At the Vulture Peak assembly, the four groups gathered like the sea; the World-Honored One held up a flower, and the assembly was at a loss; only Venerable Kasyapa faintly broke into a smile. Like the single 'yes' in my teaching, where mouth and ear are both lost, it was the same sudden thorough awakening. At that time, if Zeng Can had not directly broken open the secret key of loyalty and reciprocity, not only would the disciples' confusion have deepened, but a thousand years later, how could one dispel the clouds of confusion about the one thread running through all? Once, in Chengdu, old Chan Master Yuanwu of Foguo held his tablet in the abbot's room at Mount Jia and took up Xuedou's Verses on Old Cases in a hundred cases. His great disciple, Teacher Gao, fearing that students would be stuck on words and phrases and fail the patriarchs of the past, took the old master's tongue and consigned it to blazing flames, letting the smoke rise and scatter on the rubbish heap, as though pouring a drop into a great gorge or the great void, like the ancient Deshan before the old woman selling oil cakes. This commentary and notes had already turned to cold ash, nothing left. Yet wildfire cannot burn it all out, and the spring wind blows and it grows again. Flowers fall on the Blue Cliff, and the sunny slope is like embroidery. Passing through past kalpas, dead ashes blaze again; I do not know where all these entanglements came from. One by one they were planted by Layman Zhang of Yuzhong on a tree with no shadow, and their whole substance is exposed. Prajna needs no explanation, yet the devas rain flowers. After a hundred and seventy or eighty years, monks suddenly pierce their nostrils crosswise; the precious incense never smelled before surges like water and steams like clouds, and in an instant fills all eighty-four thousand pores. It may be called a profound, rare matter, hard to meet. Later the layman's two sons fell ill in the mind. Some said: because Qin Bao's scriptures had the blocks burned by Teacher Gao, the layman should not have picked up the remaining embers, and for the sake of the light of the sun and moon he received such a retribution. The layman doubted this and asked me about it. I said: Among Yuanwu's disciples, each is a Teacher Gao; the Blue Cliff is blue in itself; how can one say that Teacher Gao, seeing the moon and forgetting the finger, went on to blame the old Buddha and let a poisonous fire stretch to heaven, toppling the pole of the temple and leaving not a thread? Those who have never known the moon, who will ride on a finger to show it to them? Others say: Teacher Gao burned this book and swore it to the ghosts of the altar, which was very grave, and the layman's two sons' trouble lies precisely here. I say: when Teacher Gao clearly took up the torch, burning the old paper red through, how did wind pass through the secret room? Old Qin's life-gate and tongue root have a separate indestructible part; a single spark scattered, and a bright moon in an empty mountain; where did Layman Zhang get this news? Taking a stretch of natural Western Shu brocade and weaving it once again in the old pattern, I suppose the forest spirits secretly prepared the ground, guarded it until now, and this too must be the time and circumstance for this book to appear in the world. At the Cool Pond, a needle and a mustard seed meet; writing out, reading and reciting, and explaining it to others should bring supreme merit and blessing. How much more so cutting it in stone and wood and passing it along in circulation! The root of the layman's two sons' mind-sickness was never in this. A hired hand wrongly weighs it by feeling and consciousness.

居士緣其目前不足計拔之禍福。亦以情識卜度之。是相隨赴火坑也。豈不冤哉。冥驗記。沛國周氏。三子並瘖。一日有客造門曰。君可內省宿愆。忽猛憶兒時見燕窠三子。伺其母出。各以一蒺藜吞之。斯須共斃。母還悲鳴而去。常自悔責。客曰。君既知悔責。罪今免矣。三子即皆能言。然則居士二子之病風喪心。得無亦有可悔恨之事乎。談般若者。若為人輕賤。是人先世罪業應墮惡道。以今世人輕賤故。先世罪業即為消滅。居士能於此有省。縱無始劫來所造諸業。當應時消滅。即君二子之心疾。當如周氏三子之應時能言。可以不疑。世尊住世。四十九年。六百函文字。覆藏遍界。若從杲上座之說。萬年一念。更留蹤跡作麼。向上禪林無限尊宿有兩句。最端的曰。任爾即心即佛。我但非心非佛。今而後有謗如來正法輪者。君但應之曰。任汝說杲上座底是。我只說勤老師底是。若不如是。即恐燎卻面門。四百四病一時發矣。將如居士二子心疾何。不見古人道。養子方知父母恩。居士學佛知恩。臨老懺悔。他日作家爐鞴。跳出丈六金身。不知還見勤老師真箇揚眉竪拂否。若還一句薦得。向道佛祖有誓。罪不重科。莫殃及他家兒孫好。雖然如是。且得沒交涉。是年延祐丁巳中元日。海粟老人馮子振題。

The layman, because of what was before his eyes, could not weigh blessing and misfortune, and likewise weighed it by feeling and consciousness, and so followed along to jump into the fire pit. Is it not a wrong? The Record of Hidden Proofs says: a Zhou family of Pei state had three sons, all mute. One day a guest came to the gate and said: "You should examine yourself for past faults within." Suddenly he recalled that in childhood he saw three nestlings in a swallow's nest, and while their mother was out he fed each of them a caltrop; in a moment all died, and the mother returned, cried sadly and left. He had always blamed himself with regret. The guest said: "Since you know to regret and blame yourself, your guilt is now absolved." The three sons could all speak. Then the layman's two sons who went mad and lost their minds, might there not also be something to regret? One who speaks of prajna, if he is despised by others, this person's past karmic offenses, which should have made him fall into evil paths, because of being despised by people in this life, those past offenses are thereby extinguished. If the layman can awaken to this, then even the karmas made through beginningless kalpas will be extinguished on the spot, and the mind-sickness of your two sons will be like the Zhou family's three sons, able to speak on the spot; there is no need to doubt. The World-Honored One lived in the world for forty-nine years, and six hundred cases of writing cover the whole world. If one follows Teacher Gao's saying, one thought for ten thousand years, what traces are left to remain? Among countless venerables of the Chan forests above, there are two lines that are most clear: "Let you say mind is Buddha; I only say not mind, not Buddha." From now on, if anyone slanders the true Dharma wheel of the Tathagata, you need only answer: "Let you say Teacher Gao is right; I will say Old Teacher Qin is right." If not so, I fear your face will be scorched, and the four hundred and four illnesses will break out at once. What then of the layman's two sons' mind-sickness? Did you not hear the ancients say: "Only when you raise a child do you know the parents' kindness"? The layman, studying the Buddha, knows kindness, and repents in old age. Some day, from the master's furnace and bellows, a sixteen-foot golden body will leap out; I do not know whether he will see Old Teacher Qin truly raising his eyebrows and holding up the whisk. If you can recognize it in a single phrase, I tell you the Buddhas and Patriarchs have a vow: the offense is not penalized twice; do not bring calamity on the descendants of another family. Even so, it still has no connection. Written in the same year, the dingsi year of Yanyou, on the Zhongyuan festival, by Feng Zizhen, the old man Haisu.

碧巖集行於世者數版。卷套多多。到上學徒盛笈非便也。故(予)欲成小字縮行省紙冊。有年所矣。安政丁巳秋。篤信檀士戮力捨財。喜資上木。即命剞劂氏。事既竣焉。喜捨刊梓製本賤價。固予初志也。若夫碧巖曲節。先哲序跋善美盡盡。(予)何言乎。簡省刻成。故書詹言於筴端。爾安政六年歲在己未秋七月初吉勅住華園玉桃菴主萬寧玄彙敬識。

The Blue Cliff Collection has circulated in the world in several editions, with many fascicles and cases, which is inconvenient for students traveling with their book boxes. So I wished to make a small-character, condensed edition that saves paper, and for years I have kept this in mind. In the autumn of the dingsi year of the Ansei era, devoted lay patrons united their strength and donated wealth, gladly funding the cutting of the blocks, and I at once instructed the engraver; the work is now complete. That the cutting is joyfully donated and the volume made at a low price was indeed my original intention. As for the fine points of the Blue Cliff, the prefaces and postscripts of earlier worthies have said all that is good and beautiful; what more can I say? Because the condensed version is complete, I write these few words at the head of the volume. On the first day of the seventh month, autumn of the year jiwei, the sixth year of Ansei, respectfully recorded by Mannei Genkai, imperially appointed abbot of Jade Peach Hermitage in Huayuan.