南嶽大乘止觀序
Preface to the Mahāyāna Śamatha-Vipaśyanā of Nanyue
兩浙路勸農使兼提點刑獄公事朝奉大夫行尚書度支員外郎護軍借紫朱頔撰
Zhu Di, Commissioner of Agriculture and Penal Affairs, Liangzhe Circuit
鶴林示滅而來賢聖應世者非一。咸以六度萬行通達大智。安住於法界拔濟於群迷。金文寶軸具載於諸法之藏。若夫空一切法證一切性。不於三界現其身。意達正覺之真源顯毘盧之實相。則見乎南嶽大師之止觀也。大師靈山佛會之聖眾三世化緣。於衡岫密承佛旨親聽法音。總馬鳴龍樹之心要。具菩提涅槃之了義。故著止觀上下二論遣真妄於一念。明體相之無迹。空拳舒手無物可見。則止觀之理自是而顯。寂照其門由是而入。為出世之宗本作佛種之導師。不歷僧祇直超聖位。嗟夫斯教雖大顯示啟來者。而人世未之普見流于海外。逮五百年咸平中日本國僧寂照以斯教航海而來復歸。聖朝天禧四年夏四月靈隱山天竺教主遵式將示。生生之佛種咸成上上之勝緣。乃俾刻其文又復以序為請。重念如意稱珠已還。合浦虛室生白坐見法身。顧鑽仰之未至抑稱讚之無取。但願一切信心見者能修。修者能證。對諸境而不動。於諸法而無染。一受不退一得永得。盡未來際常與南嶽大師俱生行如來事焉。
Since the Venerable One entered nirvana at the Sal Tree Grove, many sages and saints have appeared to help the world. They all cultivate the six perfections and ten thousand practices to attain great wisdom, abide in the realm of truth, and rescue beings lost in confusion. The golden texts and jeweled scrolls fully contain all the teachings. But to realize that all phenomena are empty, to awaken to true nature, to no longer appear in the three realms, to reach the source of true enlightenment, and to manifest the ultimate reality—this is revealed in the *Cessation and Insight* teachings of the Great Master of Nanyue.
The Great Master was among the sacred assembly at the Vulture Peak. Through three realms of past, present, and future, he received the Buddha’s intent and heard the Dharma at the Heng Mountains. He gathered the essential teachings of Aśvaghoṣa and Nāgārjuna, mastering the perfect meaning of enlightenment and nirvana. Therefore, he wrote the two treatises on Cessation and Insight, which resolve truth and falsehood in a single thought. They reveal that essence and form have no trace—like an empty fist or an open hand, nothing can be grasped. Thus the principle of cessation and insight becomes clear; through the gate of stillness and illumination, one enters. It is the foundation of liberation, the guide for the seed of Buddhahood, enabling one to transcend countless lifetimes and directly attain enlightenment.
Alas! Though this teaching is great and reveals the path for seekers, it has not been widely seen in the human world, but flowed to foreign lands. Five hundred years later, during the Xianping era of the Song dynasty, the Japanese monk Jakushō brought this teaching across the sea and then returned. In the fourth year of the Tianxi era, during the summer of the fourth month, Zunshi, the abbot of Tianzhu Monastery at Lingyin Mountain, was about to transmit the seed of Buddhahood for all beings and create supreme good conditions. He therefore had the text engraved and asked me to write a preface. Thinking of the wish-fulfilling jewel that has returned to Hepu, the empty room that gives birth to whiteness, sitting and seeing the Dharma body—though I have not yet fully grasped it and cannot praise it adequately—my only wish is that all who have faith, upon seeing this, will practice, and those who practice will realize it. May they remain unmoved before all circumstances, undefiled by all phenomena, never retreating once they receive it, and forever possessing it once attained. For endless future ages, may they always live with the Great Master of Nanyue and perform the deeds of the Tathāgata.