직지심체요절 (Anthology of Great Buddhist Priests' Zen Teachings — World's Oldest Movable Metal Type, 1377)

One should know that the old masters of antiquity approached those who had the Way to correct and verify it. The subtlety of verification is like ten suns shining together. How could it be something that is inherited hastily?

○ When Chan Master Guling was traveling, he met Baizhang and was enlightened. Later, he returned to Dazhong Temple in Fuzhou to serve his master. The master asked, "Since you left me, what work have you achieved?" Guling replied, "None." Later, he was tasked with labor. One day, while bathing, he asked his master to wash his back. He patted his back and said, "What a fine Buddha hall, but the Buddha has no spirit." His master turned his head and saw him. Guling said, "Even if the Buddha has no spirit, it can still emit light." Another day, the master was reading scriptures under a bright window. A bee hit the paper of the window, seeking to exit. Guling saw this and said, "The world is so vast and open, yet you are unwilling to exit; why do you drill against that old piece of paper?" The master put down the scriptures and asked, "When you were traveling, who did you meet? Before and after, I have seen your speech is unusual. Tell me about it." Guling ascended the seat and lifted the gate style of Baizhang, saying, "The spiritual light shines alone, transcending the senses and dust. The body is revealed in eternal truth; it does not rely on written words."

"The chicken flies up to the railing, flaps its wings, and calls." He then said to himself, "Is this not sound?" He then tucked incense into his sleeve and entered the room to report his realization. The ancestor said, "The great matter of Buddhas and ancestors is not something that those with inferior roots and intellect can achieve. I rejoice for you." The ancestor invited the elders of the mountains and said, "My attendant has attained the Patriarchal Zen."

○ Zen Master Ying'an Hua said: "The old masters of antiquity, when their hearts and eyes were not yet clear, would urgently approach those who had the Way to correct themselves. Once their hearts and eyes were clearly opened, they would use the power of their original vows to hide their tracks in the mountains or forests for twenty or thirty years, accumulating the life-work, grinding their mental consciousness until it was completely pure, without a single hair's breadth of fault. When encountering states or conditions, they viewed them as walls or rubble, completely devoid of any thought of duality. Their hearts were like the great empty void, still and silent. This is called the 'Diamond True Body'—pure, bare, and perfectly round. Only then, with a 'no-effort' practice, even though they have no heart to respond to the world, their heart of responding to the world is constant and without interruption. Even though they have no heart to save things, their heart of saving things is abundant and without..."