Inspriration from all walks of life
一一八 喧 扰
每天弟子们都以各种问题旁敲侧击地向大师请益，大师有时很严肃地答复他们，有时很轻松地谈笑。
有个弟子总是沉默不语地坐着听完每个讨论会。
当别人问她的感受，她说：「我几乎一个字也没听进去，他的沉默让我很分心。」
NOISE
Each day the Master would be inundated with questions that he would reply to
seriously, playfully, gently, firmly.
One disciple always sat through each session in silence.
When someone questioned her about it, she said, “I hardly hear a word he says. I am
too distracted by his silence.”
一一七 佳 运
大师常教诲弟子：真正的圣德，不在于做什么，而是随缘任运而已。
某些弟子始终难以体会个中奥义，于是大师讲了壹个故事：
从前有一只龙，牠只有一只脚，牠好奇地问蜈蚣：「你走路时，怎么安排这么多只脚？我那唯一的脚已够我忙的了。」
蜈蚣答道：「说实话，我从来没有想到要去安排它们。」
TRUST
The Master would frequently assert that holiness was less a matter of what one did
than of what one allowed to happen.
To a group of disciples who had difficulty understanding that, he told the following
story:
There was once a one-legged dragon who said to the centipede. “How do you manage
all those legs? It is all I can do to manage one.”
“To tell you the truth.” said the centipede. “I do not manage them at all.”
一一六 悟 心
「明心见性带给你什么好处？」
「喜乐。」
「什么是喜乐？」
「就是当你失去一切时，仍清楚明了你所失去的只是一个玩具而已。」
REALIZATION
“What did Enlightenment bring you?”
“Joy.”
“And what is Joy?”
“The realization that when everything is lost you have only lost a toy,”
一一五 身临其境
弟子们请求大师给予一个供他们模仿的灵修典型，大师却说：「嘘！听！」
当他们静听寺外的夜声，大师轻轻地哼着一句有名的俳句：
「早夭的生命，无法领会蝉儿的歌声。」
PRESENCE
When the disciples asked for a model of spirituality that they could imitate, all that the
Master said was, “Hush! Listen.”
And as they listened to the sounds of the night outside the monastery, the Master
softly intoned the celebrated haiku:
“Of an early death showing no awareness the cicada sings.”
一一四 天堂
有个弟子脑中总是关切死后的情形，大师对他说：「为何要为往后的事浪费宝贵的光阴？」
「我们怎能不想呢？」
「当然可以。」
「如何做到？」
「但哪里有天堂？」
「活于当下现前的天堂？
「就在当下一刻。」
HEAVEN
To a disciple who was obsessed with the thought of life after death, the Master said,
“Why waste a single moment thinking of the hereafter?”
“But is it possible not to?”
‘Yes.’
“How?”
“By living in heaven here and now.”
“And where is this heaven?”
“It is here and now.”
一一三 自 然
一位演说家口沫横飞地向人们解释：当前世界只需要由庞大的军备经费中拨出极小的一部分，就能解决所有人类的生活问题。
弟子们听了这番演说后的第一个反应就是：「人类怎么会变得如此愚蠢？」
大师面色凝重地说：「因为人们学会了读白纸黑字，而失去了阅读无字天书的艺术。」
「什么是无字天书，请给我们一个实例。」
但大师不给实例。
一天，大师终于拗不过他们的追问，便说：「鸟鸣虫噪都在宣告真理；花红草绿，都在为我们指示人生之道：好好地听，好好地看，这才是真正的学习之道。」
NATURE
A lecturer explained how a fraction of the enormous sums spent on arms in the
modem world would solve all the material problems of every member of the human race.
The inevitable reaction of the disciples after the lecture was, “But why are human
beings so stupid?”
“Because,” said the Master solemnly, “people have learnt to read printed books. They
have forgotten the art of reading unprinted ones.”
“Give us an example of an unprinted book.” But the Master wouldn’t give one.
One day in response to their persistence, he said: “The songs of birds, the sounds of
insects are all trumpeting forth the Truth. The grasses and the flowers are all pointing out
the Way. Listen! Look! That is the way to read!”
一一二 入 世
大师虽对自己的弟子很慈悲，但也毫不隐瞒地表示他更偏爱住在「世界」中的人，基于寺院中的弟子，也就是指那羣成家立业的商人、农人等等。
当弟子们质询此事，他答复道：「在行动中的修持，远超过退隐的修行。」
INVOLVEMENT
The Master white being gracious to all his disciples, could not conceal his preference
for those who lived in the “world” — the married, the merchants, the farmers — over those
who lived in the monastery.
When he was confronted about this he said, “Spirituality practised in the state of
activity is incomparably superior to that practised in the state of withdrawal.”
111 闭 塞
一羣大学院士来访，大师极度慇懃地招待他们，却从不正面答复他们的问题，也不加入他们的神学研讨。
弟子们知道大师内具深意。他说：「你怎能向井底之蛙谈论浩瀚的大海？你怎能向被困锁在自己的槪念中的人谈论超凡之境？」
RESTRICTION
The Master was exceedingly gracious to University dons who visited him but he
would never reply to their questions or be drawn into their theological speculations.
To his disciples who marvelled at this, he said, “Can one talk about the ocean to a frog
in a well — or about the divine to people who are restricted by their concepts?
一一０ 解 脱
「我如何才能得到解脱？」
「先去找出谁束缚了你。」大师说。
一周后，弟子返囘覆命：「没有人束缚我。」
「那么有什么好解脱的？」
弟子顿然醒悟，自此即变得自在洒脱了。
LIBERATION
“How shall I get liberation?”
“Find out who has bound you,” said the Master.
The disciple returned after a week and said, “No one has bound me.”
“Then why ask to be liberated?”
That was a moment of enlightenment for the disciple who suddenly became free.
一０九 幻 灭
一位弟子恳求大师指示智慧之道。大师说：「不妨试试这个方法：闭起你的眼睛，观想自己和一切生物都从悬崖的边缘被抛出去；每当你想攀住一样东西，阻止自己下坠时，心里明白那东西本身也正向下坠落……。」
这弟子尝试这个方法，立刻身心荡然，脱胎换骨。
MORTALITY
To a disciple who begged for wisdom the Master said, “Try this out: close your eyes
and see yourself and every living being thrown off the top of a precipice. Each time you
cling to something to stop yourself from falling, understand that it is falling too...”
The disciple tried it out and never was the same again.