寒山诗24首.pdf

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ke a tramp. His body and face were
old and beat. Yet in every word he breathed was a meaning in line with the subtle principles of
things, if only you thought of it deeply. Everything he said had a feeling of the Tao in it, profound
and arcane secrets. His hat was made of birch bark, his clothes were ragged and worn out, and his
shoes were wood. Thus men who have made it hide their tracks: unifying categories and
interpenetrating things. On that long veranda calling and singing, in his words of reply Ha Ha!-the
three worlds revolve. Sometimes at the villages and farms he laughed and sang with cowherds.
Sometimes intractable, sometimes agreeable, his nature was happy of itself. But how could a
person without wisdom recognize him?
I once received a position as a petty official at Tan-ch'iu. The day I was to depart, I had a bad
headache. I called a doctor, but he couldn't cure me and it turned worse. Then I met a Buddhist
Master named Feng-kan, who said he came from the Kuo-ch'ing Temple of T'ien-t'ai especially to
visit me. I asked him to rescue me from my illness. He smiled and said, "The four realms are
within the body; sickness comes from illusion. If you want to do away with it, you need pure
water." Someone brought water to the Master, who spat it on me. In a moment the disease was
rooted out. He then said, "There are miasmas in T'ai prefecture, when you get there take care of
yourself." I asked him, "Are there any wise men in your area I could look on as Master?" He
replied, "When you see him you don't recognize him, when you recognize him you don't see him. If
you want to see him, you can't rely on appearances. Then you can see him. Han-shan is
a Manjusri hiding at Kuo-ch'ing. Shih-te is a Samantabhadra. They look like poor fellows and act
like madmen. Sometimes they go and sometimes they come. The