Notes Beside the Bamboo Window — Second Collection, Part 14
Continuing the Second Collection (二筆). This section defends two foundational, often-neglected scriptures, questions the legend of eighteen separate "great awakenings," draws a small act of overlooked kindness into a rebuke of pampered monastic life, and carefully distinguishes the genuine bodhisattva path from its dangerous counterfeits.
124. 四十二章經遺教經 — The Sutra of Forty-Two Sections and the Sutra of the Buddha's Final Teaching
A defense of two foundational but neglected texts — the first sutra ever brought to China, and the Buddha's own final testament — against the complaint that their plain language makes them unworthy of serious study.
漢明帝夜夢金人，遣使天竺，得佛經《四十二章》，此聖教東流入震旦之始也。今以其言近，僧不誦持，法師不陞座為人講演。夫此經言不專近，有遠者，有言近而旨遠者，人自不察也。又《遺教經》，乃如來入滅最後之要語，喻人世所謂遺囑也。子孫昧宗祖創始之來源，是忘本也；子孫背父母臨沒之遺囑，是不孝也。為僧者胡弗思也？愚按二經實末法救病之良藥，不可忽，不可忽！
Emperor Ming of Han dreamed one night of a golden figure, and sent envoys to India, who obtained the Sutra of Forty-Two Sections — this marks the beginning of the sacred teaching's flow eastward into China. Today, because its language seems plain, monks no longer recite or uphold it, and Dharma masters no longer ascend the platform to lecture on it for others. But this sutra's words are not entirely plain — some passages are genuinely profound, and some are plain in language yet profound in meaning, which people simply fail to notice.
And the Sutra of the Buddha's Final Teaching contains the Tathāgata's own last essential words before entering nirvana — comparable to what, in worldly terms, would be called a final testament. If descendants remain ignorant of the very source from which their own ancestral line began, this is forgetting one's own roots; if descendants violate their parents' own dying wishes, this is unfilial. As monks, how can we not reflect on this?
I would say: these two sutras are truly a genuine medicine for curing the ills of this degenerate age — they must not be neglected, must not be neglected!
The Sutra of the Buddha's Final Teaching is the same short text Zhuhong has already quoted twice in this collection (entries 34 and 49 above) on the disciplines of single-minded focus and remembering one's shaved head — this entry makes explicit why he returns to it so often: he treats it, quite literally, as the Buddha's own dying instruction to the sangha, carrying an authority he compares directly to a parent's final testament.
125. 大悟小悟 — Great Awakening and Small Awakening
A skeptical examination of the legend that Master Dahui Zonggao experienced eighteen separate "great awakenings," arguing that genuine great awakening, by its very nature, should not need to repeat itself so many times.
相傳大慧杲老，大悟一十八遍，小悟不計其數。愚按學道人時有覺觸，謂之有省；乍而省，未大徹也，則名小悟，容或多遍。至於大悟，則世尊夜見明星而廓然大悟，是一悟盡悟，不俟二三矣。即如諸祖，有「直至如今更不疑」者，有「從此安邦定國天下太平」者，有「元來黃檗佛法無多子」者，雖未至佛，亦皆大悟也。而必重重纍纍如是，則向之不疑者當更起疑矣，向之太平者當更變亂矣，向之無多子者當更欠少矣，云何得稱大悟？若夫無明雖斷，猶欲斷最後窮微至細之無明；公案雖透，猶欲透最後極則淆訛之公案，則幾番大悟者容有之，但不應多之至於一十八遍也。
It is said that Elder Dahui Zonggao experienced eighteen great awakenings, and countless small awakenings beyond counting. I would say: when a student of the Way sometimes has a momentary insight through some chance encounter, this is called "having some realization" — a brief realization, not yet total and thorough, which is called a small awakening, and this may well occur many times. As for great awakening, it is like the World-Honored One himself, who saw the morning star at night and, all at once, awakened completely and totally — one single awakening that exhausted the whole matter, requiring no second or third repetition. Consider, too, the patriarchs: some, after one awakening, remained "without a shred of doubt from that moment to this"; some, after one awakening, found that "from this moment on, the realm was settled and the whole world at peace"; some, after one awakening, understood that "Huangbo's own Buddha-dharma, it turns out, amounted to nothing special at all" — though none of these had yet reached the Buddha's own realization, each may still rightly be called a great awakening.
But if, even after such a great awakening, one still needed to pass through repeated further small awakenings again and again, then the one who was "without a shred of doubt" ought to have begun doubting once more, the one for whom "the world was settled and at peace" ought to have fallen back into chaos once more, and the one who found the teaching "nothing special" ought to have found it wanting once more — how, then, could this still be called a great awakening at all? Even once ignorance has been cut off, there may still remain the subtlest, most minute trace of ignorance yet to be cut through; even once a gōng'àn has been penetrated, there may still remain some final, most difficult, most confusing gōng'àn yet to be penetrated — and so it is possible that a person might pass through several genuine great awakenings. But surely this should not number so many as eighteen times!
Dahui Zonggao (1089–1163) was a genuine and hugely influential Song Chan master, credited with popularizing the "sudden" investigation of a single word within a gōng'àn as the primary method of practice; the three named confirmations Zhuhong cites — Lingyun's peach-blossom verse, Gaofeng Yuanmiao's "the whole world at peace," and Linji's "Huangbo's Buddha-dharma amounts to nothing special" — are each genuine, independently documented awakening accounts, the first and third already discussed elsewhere in this collection (entries 97 and 55 respectively).
126. 憫下 — Compassion Toward Those Below
A small, remembered act of overlooked kindness — a Ming official noticing his own attendants had no place to sleep — becomes a pointed challenge to comfortable monks who never wonder who makes their own ease possible.
《周氏紀言》載唐一庵先生與眾友夜話，將入寢，問：「此時還有事當料理否？」眾曰：「無。」一庵謂：「今天盛寒，吾輩飲酒樂甚，諸從人尚未有寢所。」眾謝不及。所以然者，以此時惟欠伸思睡而已，而一庵獨體悉於眾情之所弗察，真仁人之言、佛菩薩之慈悲也。因思出家兒今日在僧堂中，百事不干懷，十指不點水，其入寢，亦念諸行人有未遑安處者乎？亦念諸行人之勞役不寧者，何所為而然乎？則以眾僧之辦道也。古人有言：「道業不成爭消得？」可不為寒心哉？
The Zhou Family's Recorded Sayings records that Mr. Tang Yian, talking late into the night with a group of friends, asked just before retiring to bed: "Is there still anything that needs attending to at this hour?" The others answered: "Nothing." Mr. Tang said: "Today has been bitterly cold, and we have been drinking and enjoying ourselves here — but our attendants still have no place arranged to sleep." The others were struck with shame at having overlooked this. The reason they overlooked it is simply that, by this hour, everyone present felt only their own fatigue and desire for sleep — and Mr. Tang alone was able to attend to what everyone else had failed to notice. These are truly the words of a genuinely humane man, the very compassion of a bodhisattva!
This makes me think of monks today, dwelling in the monks' hall, with nothing at all to trouble their own minds, never lifting a finger for any household task — when they retire to bed, do they ever consider whether the working attendants have found any peaceful place to rest? Do they ever consider why those attendants labor on, unable to rest, at all? It is precisely so that the assembly of monks may practice the Way in peace. The ancients had a saying: "If one's own practice of the Way remains unaccomplished, how could one possibly deserve to receive it?" How can this not give real cause for dread?
Tang Yian (Tang Shu, style name Weizhong) was a genuine Ming-dynasty scholar-official and student of the Confucian teacher Zhan Ruoshui, later dismissed from office for a memorial that angered the emperor and spending his remaining decades running his own academy in Huzhou; the entry's structure — a small secular anecdote about noticing overlooked servants, then turned pointedly against complacent monastics who owe their own ease to unseen labor — closely parallels Zhuhong's treatment of the innkeeper's dowager mother in entry 39's monks'-hall discussion, both cases of a layperson's ordinary decency held up as a rebuke to monastic self-satisfaction.
127. 菩薩 — Bodhisattva
A systematic warning against invoking the bodhisattva ideal's most demanding, expedient teachings as cover for ordinary self-indulgence and misconduct — pairing each genuine bodhisattva quality with the specific counterfeit that borrows its name.
人見如來彈斥偏小，讚歎大乘，知菩薩道所當行矣。然不審其實，而徒假其名，為害滋甚。是故未能自度先能度人者，菩薩也；因是而己事不明，好為人師，則非矣！六度齊修，萬行兼備者，菩薩也；因是而專務有為，全拋心地，則非矣！無惡名怖，乃至無大眾威德怖，坦然自在者，菩薩也；因是而聞過不悛，輕世傲物，則非矣！即殺為慈，即盜為施，乃至即妄言成實語，種種權宜方便，不可以常情局者，菩薩也；因是而毒害劫奪欺誑，甚而破滅律儀，撥無因果，如古謂「飲酒食肉不礙菩提，行盜行婬無妨般若」，則非矣！此則徇名失實，不善學柳下惠，而學步於邯鄲者也。大道無成，業果先就，慎之慎之！
People see the Tathāgata rebuke the narrowness of the lesser vehicle and praise the greatness of the Mahāyāna, and so understand that the bodhisattva path is what ought to be practiced. But without genuinely examining its real substance, and merely borrowing its name in outward form, the harm this causes can grow all the greater. Consider: one who has not yet liberated himself, and yet first resolves to liberate others — this is a bodhisattva. But if, borrowing this very name, one whose own fundamental matter remains unclear delights in setting himself up as a teacher and recklessly instructing others, this is a mistake!
Consider further: one who cultivates all six perfections equally, complete in every practice — this is a bodhisattva. But if, borrowing this same name, one devotes himself entirely to conditioned, outward works while entirely abandoning inner cultivation of the mind-ground, this too is a mistake!
Consider further: one free from the fear of a bad reputation, free even from the fear of losing face before a great and dignified assembly, remaining entirely at ease — this is a bodhisattva. But if, borrowing this same name, one hears of his own faults and refuses to reform, treats the world with contempt and others with arrogance, this too is a mistake!
Consider further: one for whom killing itself can become an act of compassion, theft itself an act of giving, even false speech itself an expression of truth — every kind of skillful expedient, not to be judged by the narrow standards of ordinary sentiment — this is a bodhisattva. But if, borrowing this same name, one recklessly commits harm, plunder, and deception, even going so far as to destroy the precepts and deny cause and effect altogether — as in the old saying, "drinking wine and eating meat is no obstacle to bodhi; theft and sexual misconduct are no hindrance to prajñā" — this is a grave mistake indeed!
All of this is clinging to the name while losing the substance — failing to properly learn from Liuxia Hui, and instead learning to walk like the youth of Handan, who forgot his own natural gait entirely in his failed attempt to imitate another's. The great Way remains unaccomplished, while the fruit of one's own karma arrives first — be careful, be very careful indeed!
Liuxia Hui is the classical Chinese exemplar of unshakeable self-restraint — the Confucian tradition's own story of him warming a freezing, homeless woman through the night without the slightest impropriety gave rise to the enduring idiom "sitting in one's embrace without becoming disordered"; the "youth of Handan" comes from a Zhuangzi parable about a young man who tried to imitate the elegant gait of the capital's residents and ended up forgetting how to walk at all, crawling home instead — both allusions frame the entry's real warning: that borrowing an advanced practitioner's expedient conduct without his actual attainment produces not liberation but simple ruin.