濟公活佛慈悲訓示
德恩壇 [CAde] · Chino, California · 2024.11.17 · the second day of the two-day 飲水思源班. Class Type 感恩檢討班, in the temple's own English "Gratitude & Repentance Class"; the record's own 班程 tags are 感恩班 / 檢討班. 原班程名稱 is empty.
20241117CAde1
二〇二四年十一月十七日，加州德恩壇，兩天「飲水思源班」的第二天，班別是感恩檢討。全篇的本訓是一首歌——借既有的曲子〈菩提明鏡〉填詞，十六句從頭到尾都唱；而它的形狀整齊得驚人：每句恰十字，句句以「去」起頭、以「我」收尾，十六次同一個動作。這一篇不從「你該感謝什麼」講起，它從「你身上有什麼要拿掉」講起——因為回到源頭最實在的辦法，就是把源頭以後一層一層加上去的東西拿下來。第一句已經把話說完：《論語》「子絕四」的固、意、必、我一次去盡，赤子復真我，而「復」是回來、不是造，那顆心本來就在。全篇最要緊的一點藏在語法裡——十六句的「我」幾乎都是受詞，來作用我的是赤子、是醍醐、是佛慈、是真心、是志向、是真理；我只負責把擋住的東西拿開，剩下的事由別的力量來做。這正是所借曲名的意思：擦鏡子的人做的事只有一件，把灰拿掉；鏡子的亮，本來就有。而最後一句用了一模一樣的句法，只把主語換掉——你不去撤掉它，它就來作用你，而它做的事叫攻害。（開壇的四句鎮壇詩先舉《左傳》三不朽，再用「腳踏實地修」把腳放回地上，是全篇的轉軸。）
November 17th, 2024, at the Dé Ēn Altar in Chino, California — the second day of a two-day class called 飲水思源, drink the water, remember the source, held for gratitude and self-examination. The main body is a song, set to a melody that already existed, and all sixteen of its lines are sung to it in a shape of astonishing regularity: every line is exactly ten characters, every line opens with 去, strip away, and every line closes on 我, me. Sixteen times, the same gesture and the same object. The teaching does not begin from what you ought to be grateful for; it begins from what you have to take off — because the most practical way back to a source is to remove, layer by layer, everything added since. The first line says the whole thing already: the Analects’ four abolitions — obstinacy, conjecture, insistence, egotism — cleared at a stroke, and the newborn’s heart restores the true self, 復, come back to rather than built. And the most important fact about all sixteen lines is hidden in their grammar: 我 is almost always the object. The newborn’s heart, the last refinement of the milk, the Buddha’s compassion, the true heart, the planted will, truth — those act, and I am acted upon. My part is only to take away what is in the way. That is exactly what the borrowed melody’s name means: the one wiping a mirror does one thing, remove the dust; the brightness was already there. And the final line uses the identical construction with only the subject changed — fail to sweep it out, and it acts on you, and what it does is harm. (The four-line opening verse raises the Three Imperishables of the Zuo Commentary and then, in its last line, sets the feet back on solid ground — the hinge the whole teaching turns on.)
About this editionAI-assisted study edition — the Chinese original is canonical; English is pending our elders’ review.
鎮壇詩 Verse to Settle the Altar · recited
三不朽的第一件。《左傳》記叔孫豹的話：「太上有立德，其次有立功，其次有立言」，鎮壇詩前三句就是照這個次序一句一件。而這一句給立德配的是「精神留」——留下來的不是名字，不是碑，是精神。德行最難的地方就在這裡：它沒有可以陳列的成品，它留下來的方式，是別人身上多了一點什麼。
The first of the Three Imperishables. The Zuo Commentary records the saying: “Highest is to establish virtue, next to establish merit, next to establish words” — and the opening verse takes them one to a line, in that order. What this line pairs with virtue is 精神留, the spirit remaining: not a name, not a monument. That is what makes virtue the hardest of the three — it leaves no finished object you can put on display. The way it survives is that there is a little more of something in another person.
「千秋」是秋收一次算一年，極長的時間。而分量全在那個「傳」字：功不是自己留住的，是被別人接下去的。你做的事若沒有人接手，它就跟你一起結束。
千秋, a thousand autumns — one harvest to a year — is simply a very long time. The weight of the line sits on 傳, to hand on: merit is not kept by the one who made it, it is taken up by someone else. Work nobody picks up ends when you do.
「黈」指冕冠上垂在耳邊的黃色絲綿耳塞，叫「黈纊」。《漢書》東方朔《答客難》：「冕而前旒，所以蔽明；黈纊充耳，所以塞聰。」這是一個乍看很奇怪的設計——地位最高的人，冠冕上偏偏裝著擋眼睛、堵耳朵的東西；但道理正在這裡：什麼都看見、什麼都聽見的人，是無法判斷的。所以這一句可以這樣讀：能夠留下來的話，來自懂得不聽什麼的智慧。立言不是多說，恰恰要先學會擋。
黈 names the plugs of yellow silk floss that hung at the ears of the ancient ceremonial crown, the 黈纊. The Book of Han, in 東方朔’s “Answer to a Guest’s Objection,” explains the whole apparatus in one breath: the crown hangs beads before the eyes to screen the sight, and stops the ears with yellow floss to stop the hearing. It looks like a strange design — the person of highest rank wearing something built to block his own eyes and ears — but that is exactly the point: someone who lets in everything cannot judge anything. So the line reads: words worth keeping come from the wisdom that knows what not to listen to. Establishing words is not saying more; it begins with learning to shut something out.
前三句一路往上——德、功、言，千秋不朽；第四句把腳放回地上。「腳踏實地」的意思很清楚：不在空處講，在實處走。而這一句是整篇的轉軸——三不朽是何等大的事，可是通向它的路，這裡只給了四個字。鎮壇詩把目標舉得很高，本訓把台階放得很低。
The first three lines climb — virtue, merit, words, imperishable through a thousand autumns — and the fourth puts the feet back on the ground. 腳踏實地 says it plainly: not discussed in the air, walked on solid ground. This is the hinge of the whole teaching. The Three Imperishables are an enormous thing to want, and the road to them is given in four characters. The opening verse sets the goal very high; the main teaching sets the step very low.
這四句用三個「立」字舉出《左傳》的三不朽——立德、立功、立言——再用第四句把腳放回地上。第一句給立德配的是「精神留」：留下來的不是名字、不是碑，是精神；德行沒有可以陳列的成品，它留下來的方式，是別人身上多了一點什麼。第二句的分量全在「傳」字：功不是自己留住的，是被別人接下去的。第三句最耐讀——「黈」指冕冠垂在耳邊的黃絲綿耳塞，《漢書》說「黈纊充耳，所以塞聰」；地位最高的人，冠冕上偏偏裝著堵耳朵的東西，因為什麼都聽見的人是無法判斷的。所以能夠留下來的話，來自懂得不聽什麼的智慧。
而第四句「腳踏實地修」是整篇的轉軸：前三句一路往上，第四句把腳放回地面——不在空處講，在實處走。四句押同一道韻（留、秋、黈、修），可見那個罕見的「黈」是為押韻而選、不是筆誤。鎮壇詩把目標舉得很高，接下來的十六句把台階放得很低；而第三句所立的那道防線——耳朵擋住不該進來的——要等到全篇最後一句，才點明它擋的是什麼。
These four lines raise the Three Imperishables of the Zuo Commentary — establish virtue, establish merit, establish words — and then, in the fourth, put the feet back on the ground. What the first line pairs with virtue is the spirit remaining: not a name and not a monument. Virtue is the hardest of the three precisely because it leaves no finished object; what survives of it is that there is a little more of something in another person. The second line’s weight is all on 傳, to hand on: merit is not kept by its maker, it is taken up by someone else, and work nobody picks up ends when you do. The third is the one to sit with. 黈 names the plugs of yellow silk floss that hung at the ears of the ceremonial crown, and the Book of Han explains the whole apparatus in a breath — beads before the eyes to screen the sight, floss at the ears to stop the hearing. The person of highest rank wore something built to block his own senses, because someone who lets in everything cannot judge anything. So words worth keeping come from the wisdom that knows what not to listen to.
And the fourth line is the hinge of the whole teaching: after three lines climbing, it sets the feet back down — not discussed in the air, walked on solid ground. All four close on one rhyme (留 · 秋 · 黈 · 修), which is itself the evidence that the rare character was chosen for its sound and is no slip. The opening verse sets the goal very high and the sixteen lines that follow set the step very low; and the guard this verse builds — ears stopped against what should not get in — is not explained until the teaching’s very last line names what it was guarding against.
吾乃 Who I Am · recited
這一段短，但每一截都在做一件事，而且順序是固定的：自報名號、說明是奉 老Φ的旨意而來（不是自己要來的）、進門先向 皇Φ參駕行禮，最後才回過頭來問一聲大家好。先有命，再有禮，然後才有話。名號本身也值得看：「爾師」是關係不是頭銜——一個名號裡先出現的是「你們」，然後才是自己。而問安也不是籠統的一句，是「各個身安」，一個一個地問。
這一點很要緊，因為底下十六句是很硬的：每一句都要你去掉一樣東西，沒有一句是安慰。但講這些話的人，是先問了一聲你好不好，才開始的。
This passage is short, but every clause does one thing and the order never varies: name yourself, say that you come under the Eternal Mother’s decree and not on your own errand, make obeisance before the Sovereign Mother on entering, and only then turn and greet the room. Decree first, then reverence, then speech. The self-naming is worth noticing too: 爾師, “your teacher,” is a relationship and not a title — the first word in the name is you. And the greeting is not a general hello but 各個身安, each person asked after individually.
That matters, because the sixteen lines that follow are hard: every one of them asks you to give something up, and not one is a consolation. But the one giving them asked whether you were well before he began.
這一行短，但每一截都在做一件事，而且順序是固定的：自報名號、說明是奉 老Φ的旨意而來、進門先向 皇Φ參駕行禮，最後才回過頭來問一聲大家好。先有命，再有禮，然後才有話。名號本身就值得看一眼：「爾師」是關係不是頭銜——一個名號裡先出現的是「你們」，然後才是自己。而「已將」兩個字說明那個禮在開口之前就行完了，不是講到這裡才想起來。問安也不是籠統的一句，是「各個身安」，一個一個地問。
這一問把整篇的溫度定了下來。底下十六句是很硬的：每一句都要你去掉一樣東西，沒有一句是安慰，最後一句還是一句警告。但講這些話的人，是先問了一聲你身體好不好，才開始的——這兩件事並不衝突，它們是同一種慈悲的兩面。
This single line is short, but every clause does one thing and the order never varies: name yourself, say that you come under the Eternal Mother’s decree, make obeisance before the Sovereign Mother on entering, and only then turn and greet the room. Decree first, then reverence, then speech. The self-naming repays a second look — 爾師, “your teacher,” is a relationship rather than a title, and the first word in the name is you. 已將 marks the bow as already completed before a word was spoken, not remembered on the way past. And the greeting is not a general hello but 各個身安: each person, individually, asked whether they are well in the body.
That question sets the temperature of everything after it. The sixteen lines to come are hard — each one asks you to give something up, not one is a consolation, and the last is a warning. But the one giving them checked first that everybody in the room was all right, and the two facts do not conflict. They are two faces of the same tenderness.
本訓 Main Teaching · 調寄〈菩提明鏡〉 · sung
「固意必我」直接搬自《論語·子罕》「子絕四：毋意，毋必，毋固，毋我」——意是私意臆測，必是非如此不可，固是固執成見，我是私己，也是前面三樣的總根。要留意這一句裡有兩個「我」：第五個字的「我」是要去掉的，句末的「我」是要回來的。而「復」不是成、不是造，是回來——赤子之心本來就在，只是被固、意、必、我壓住了。《道德經》「含德之厚，比於赤子」與《孟子》「大人者，不失其赤子之心者也」，都不是在讚美天真，是在指認一種還沒有被加工過的狀態。班名叫「飲水思源」，而這一句就是把思源用在自己身上：你要回去的那個源頭，就是你還沒有裝上這四樣東西以前的樣子。
固意必我 is lifted straight from the Analects: “The Master wholly put four things away — no private conjecture, no insistence that things must turn out so, no fixed obstinacy, no egotism.” Note that this ten-character line carries two 我: the one in fifth position is the ego being discarded, and the one that closes the line is the true self coming back. And the verb is 復, to return — the newborn’s heart is not built or acquired, it is come back to; it was there all along, pinned under those four things. The Daodejing’s “one whose virtue is thickest is like an infant” and Mencius’ “the great person is the one who has not lost the heart of the newborn” are not praising innocence; they are naming a state that has not yet been worked over. The class was called 飲水思源, drink the water, remember the source — and this line turns that on the seeker: the source you are going back to is what you were before those four were added.
「臲卼」是站不穩、隨時可能翻掉（《周易·困卦》上六「困于葛藟，于臲卼」——被藤蔓纏住，處在搖搖欲墜的地方）；「跋躓」是路走得極辛苦而且一再摔跤。一靜一動，把一個人的處境說盡了。然後訓文給出原因，而且只給一個字：忿。《大學》說「身有所忿懥，則不得其正」——心裡帶著怒，心不是「不好」，是歪了；心一歪，站得穩才怪。而「處處」兩個字是強調：不是偶爾，是到處都是。人常以為自己是運氣不好，這一句說：不是運氣，是你心裡那股火。
臲卼 is ground that will not hold still — the Book of Changes, in its hexagram of confinement: hemmed in among creeping vines, on footing where every movement brings regret. 跋躓 is trudging that keeps catching its own feet and going down. One still, one moving; between them they describe a whole situation. Then the teaching gives the cause, and gives only one character for it: 忿, anger. The Great Learning is flat about it — let anger have a hold in you and nothing in you sits straight. Not bad: crooked. And 處處, at every turn, insists this is not occasional. People usually read a season like that as bad luck. This line says it is not luck; it is the heat you are carrying.
這一句的動詞是雙的——「去剷」，因為要對付的東西是「深」的。《信心銘》開頭說：「至道無難，唯嫌揀擇。但莫憎愛，洞然明白。」分別心最根本的樣子就是憎愛。而愛憎不會只停在心裡，它露出來的樣子就是「疾言厲色」。《後漢書·劉寬傳》記劉寬「雖在倉卒，未嘗疾言遽色」：他夫人故意讓侍女把肉羹翻在他朝服上，他第一句話是「羹爛汝手耶？」。衣服髒了是小事，人的第一反應才是大事——愛憎深的人，遇事第一個念頭是「這對我好還是不好」；愛憎剷平的人，第一個念頭可以是別人的手。
The verb here is doubled — 去剷, strip away and scrape out — because what it is after is 深, held deep. The Inscription on Faith in Mind opens on the same diagnosis: the highest way is not hard, it only dislikes picking and choosing; stop loving and hating and it stands wide open. And the depth does not stay inside — it shows as 疾言厲色, hasty speech and a harsh countenance. The Book of Later Han preserves the opposite as a portrait of one man’s whole character: even caught off guard, 劉寬 never once spoke sharply or let his face change — when his wife had a servant spill hot soup on his court robe to test him, his first words were, “Did it scald your hand?” The stained robe is the small thing. The first reaction is the large one.
「詖」與「頗」是同一個意思：偏、不正。《孟子》「詖辭知其所蔽」講的是偏頗的話聽得出他被什麼蒙住了，而關鍵在後面那句「生於其心」；訓文把「詖」從話移到行、再配上「頗心」——詖行在外，頗心在內，外面的歪是裡面的歪長出來的。「洗滌」對著《道德經》第十章「滌除玄覽，能無疵乎」：把心鏡上的塵垢洗乾淨，能一點瑕疵都不剩嗎？而那一章的上一句正是「能嬰兒乎」——洗淨心鏡與回到嬰兒，在《道德經》裡本來就是一起講的，與第一句「赤子復真我」是同一件事。
詖 and 頗 both mean the same thing: leaning, off true. Mencius says that from lopsided speech you can tell what a person is blind to — and that such speech is born in the heart first. The teaching moves the lopsidedness out of speech into conduct (詖行) and into the heart itself (頗心): crooked outside, slanted inside, and the outer grows from the inner. 洗滌 stands over chapter 10 of the Daodejing — “wash the mind’s own dark mirror; can you leave it without a flaw?” And the line just before that one in the same chapter is “can you become an infant?” Washing the mirror and returning to the newborn were one subject there already, which is exactly what `BX01` said.
動詞又是雙的——「去空」。「五蘊」是色、受、想、行、識，眾生把這五樣湊起來的東西當成一個實在的「我」，於是有執著、有苦；《心經》「照見五蘊皆空，度一切苦厄」講的就是這件事。所以不是要毀掉身體，是要看穿這個臨時湊成的「我」並不實在。「濯濯」出自《孟子》牛山之木：山被斧斤與牛羊剝得光禿禿，人看見就以為它從來沒長過木材——同一個字，在孟子那裡是被砍剩的荒，在這裡是被洗淨的淨；差別在剝掉的是什麼。「釁苟」是從馬虎苟且裡長出來的細小裂縫：不是大罪，是縫——而縫最麻煩的地方在於，它小到你不會去管，卻正好是東西從那裡壞掉的地方。
The verb is doubled again — 去空, strip away by seeing through as empty. The five aggregates are form, feeling, perception, formation and consciousness: the five heaps we bundle together and take for a solid “me,” which is where clinging and suffering begin. The Heart Sutra opens on it — seeing that the five aggregates are all empty, and so crossing beyond all suffering. So the line is not about destroying the body; it is about seeing through a “me” that was only ever assembled. 濯濯 comes from Mencius’ Ox Mountain, logged and grazed until it was scoured bare, so that people looking at it concluded it had never had timber in it at all — the same word, there the barrenness of what was cut away, here the cleanness of what has been washed; the difference is what was removed. 釁苟 is the fine cracks that open out of doing things just-anyhow: not great crimes, seams — and a seam’s whole danger is that it is too small to bother with, and is exactly where the thing gives way.
上一句最後兩個字是「釁苟」，這一句第二個字就是「苟」——兩句在這個字上扣住了：上一句說苟且會留下縫，這一句直接說去掉它。《禮記》「臨財毋苟得，臨難毋苟免」對得極工整：苟得是貪，苟免是怯，兩樣都是苟。而下半句很特別——「若伸張正義，沐浴我」。《孟子》說「雖有惡人，齋戒沐浴，則可以祀上帝」：再壞的人，只要真的齋戒沐浴，一樣可以主持祭祀。訓文更進一步，它沒有說去廟裡沐浴，它說伸張正義就是那場沐浴——你不是先洗乾淨才有資格做對的事，你做對的事，那件事就在洗你。這也是十六句裡唯一一句，把洗淨的力量繫在一個向外的作為上。
The previous line ended on 釁苟 and this one’s second character is 苟 — the two are hooked together on that word: there, carelessness leaves seams; here, get rid of it. The Book of Rites pairs it exactly: faced with wealth, take nothing you should not; faced with danger, dodge nothing you should not — 苟得 is greed and 苟免 is cowardice, and both are 苟. Then the second half does something unexpected. Mencius says that even a person of bad name, if he fasts and bathes, may serve at the sacrifice — and the teaching goes further: it does not send you to a bath, it says that upholding what is right is the bath. You do not get clean first and then earn the right to do the good thing; doing the good thing is what washes you. This is the only one of the sixteen lines where the cleansing power is attached to an act in the world.
「樂般」是「般樂」的倒文，「般」在這裡讀 pán，不是「般若」的般。《孟子·公孫丑上》：「今國家閒暇，及是時般樂怠敖，是自求禍也。」孟子說的不是國家危難的時候，是「國家閒暇」的時候——正是日子好過的時候，人開始放縱，那就是自己招禍。「不在」就是心不在焉：人在，心不在。享樂最消耗人的地方不是花錢，是它讓人再也專注不起來。去掉之後來的是「醍醐灌頂」：《大般涅槃經》從乳出酪、從酪出生穌、從生穌出熟穌，最後才煉出醍醐，最上的一味，「若有服者眾病皆除」。般樂是自己往身上加、越加越渾濁的享受；醍醐是從上面澆下來、越煉越精純的那一味。人身上只有那麼多容量，裝滿了前者，就接不住後者。
樂般 is an inversion of the classical 般樂, and 般 reads `pán` here — nothing to do with 般若. Mencius: “Now, while the state is at leisure, to give oneself to indulgence and idle arrogance is to invite one’s own ruin.” Note that he does not say in a crisis; he says while things are easy. That is when it starts. 不在 is the mind simply not present. What indulgence really costs is not money — it is that afterwards you cannot concentrate on anything. And what arrives in its place is 醍醐灌頂: the Nirvana Sutra runs the ladder — from the cow milk, from milk cream, from cream butter, from butter clarified butter, and only at the last, 醍醐, the finest of all, and whoever takes it, every affliction is cured. Indulgence is what you keep adding to yourself, and it grows cloudier; this is poured over you from above, and it has grown purer at every stage. A person holds only so much. Full of the first, you cannot receive the second.
「玩世不恭」是用輕浮、不當一回事的態度對待世間。而要去掉它的理由就寫在下半句：「佛慈引渡我」。「渡」是從煩惱生死的此岸到清淨解脫的彼岸，「引渡」是有人來接引你、帶你過去。上下半句擺在一起其實很現實：渡是別人來渡你的，但船上的人得肯坐好。一個什麼都不當真的人，慈悲來到他面前也接不住——玩世不恭最傷人的地方不是得罪誰，是它讓所有認真的東西都進不來。這一句和上一句是一對，而且是十六句裡僅有的一對：來作用「我」的力量，訓文明白指為外來的、更高的。
玩世不恭 is treating the world as a game and holding nothing in reverence — and the reason for stripping it away is written in the second half of the line: 佛慈引渡我. 渡 is the crossing from this shore of affliction to the far shore, and 引渡 means someone comes to lead you over. Put the halves together and the line is very practical: the ferrying is done by someone else, but the passenger has to be willing to sit down in the boat. Compassion can stand right in front of a person who takes nothing seriously and still not be caught. What flippancy really costs is not the offence it gives; it is that nothing in earnest can get in. This line and the one before it are a pair — and the only pair among the sixteen in which the power acting on 我 is named as coming from outside and above.
「人心」出自「人心惟危，道心惟微，惟精惟一，允執厥中」（繫《尚書·大禹謨》）——指的不是壞心，而是從形氣之私生出來、容易被慾望牽走的那些念頭，所以說它「惟危」。「我相」出自《金剛經》「若菩薩有我相、人相、眾生相、壽者相，即非菩薩」——認定有一個真實不變的「我」存在，這是一切執著的根。一句話裡放兩個詞，一個從儒家來，一個從佛門來，講的卻是同一件事的兩面：人心是「我」在動的樣子，我相是「我」被當真的樣子。而下半句的方向要看清楚——不是我用真心去面對世界，是真心來面對我。對一個檢討的班來說，這句話有分量：檢討最難的一步不是承認錯，是肯讓真的自己站在對面。
人心 comes from “the human heart is precarious, the heart of the Dao is subtle” (assigned to the Book of Documents) — and it does not mean a bad heart; it means the thoughts that rise out of the body’s private appetites and are therefore easily pulled off course, which is why the classic calls them precarious. 我相 is the Diamond Sutra: “If a bodhisattva holds the mark of a self, of a person, of a being, of a life span, he is no bodhisattva” — the fixed notion that there is a real, unchanging “I” in here, the root of all clinging. One line, two vocabularies, one thing seen from two sides: 人心 is the self in motion, 我相 is the self taken as real. And watch the direction of the second half — it is not that I face the world with a true heart; the true heart comes and faces me. For a class of self-examination that has weight: the hardest step is not admitting the fault, it is letting the true self stand across from you.
《論語》「巧言令色，鮮矣仁」——話說得漂亮、臉色裝得好看，這樣的人仁德很少。孔子說的是「鮮矣」而不是絕對沒有，分寸值得留意：問題不在會說話，在於把力氣全花在說得好聽上，裡面就沒剩下什麼了。下半句「澹邪僻澉」是四個古字：「澹」是恬淡、安靜、不起波瀾，「邪僻」是乖僻不正（《荀子》「所以防邪僻而近中正也」），「澉」是洗滌。合起來是一個很完整的動作：以恬淡不起波的心，把邪僻沖洗掉。而它與上半句正好是一副對子——「巧」與「令」都是加工，把話修得巧、把臉調得好看；「澹」是不加工。治巧言令色的藥，不是說更多的實話，是把那股要修飾的勁停下來。
The Analects: “Artful words and an ingratiating face — precious little humaneness in them.” Confucius says precious little, not none, and the proportion is worth noticing: the trouble is not being good with words, it is spending the whole effort on sounding good, so that nothing is left inside. The second half, 澹邪僻澉, is four archaic characters: 澹 is placid, still, unruffled; 邪僻 is the depraved and off-course (荀子: choosing where to live and whom to travel with is how one guards against 邪僻 and stays near the centre); 澉 is to wash. Together they make one complete action — with a heart too still to ripple, rinse the crookedness away. And the halves are an exact couplet: 巧 and 令 are both working on the surface, polishing the words, arranging the face; 澹 is not working on anything. The cure for artful speech is not more sincere speech. It is putting down the impulse to arrange.
「訑」可徵的古典用例在《孟子·告子下》，而且那一段幾乎就是為這一句寫的：「訑訑，予既已知之矣。訑訑之聲音顏色，距人於千里之外。」那副「我早知道了」的聲音和臉色，把人擋在一千里以外。這是所有毛病裡最難治的一種，因為它專門擋掉治它的藥——一個人只要擺出這副神色，願意告訴他真話的人就自動走光了；人走光了，他就更確信自己什麼都知道。「謾」是欺瞞；「據令」承上一句的「令色」，是倚著一張好看的外殼站住。合起來畫的是一個很具體的人：裡面自滿又不老實，外面掛著一副得體的臉。而下半句的語法仍然是被動的——是那份「明」把我叫醒；與訑訑正好相反：訑訑的人以為自己早就醒了，所以永遠醒不了。
The usable classical instance of 訑 is in Mencius, and the passage could have been written for this line: “’I already knew that’ — and that voice and that face keep people a thousand li away.” This is the hardest of all the faults to treat, because it specifically blocks its own cure: put on that expression, and everyone willing to tell you the truth quietly leaves; once they have gone, you are more certain than ever that you know everything. 謾 is to deceive. 據令 picks up 令色 from the line before — standing propped on a presentable exterior. Together they draw a very specific person: self-satisfied and dishonest inside, wearing a creditable face outside. And the grammar of the second half is passive again — it is that lucidity that wakes me. Which is the exact opposite of 訑訑: the person who thinks he woke up long ago never does.
這一句去掉三樣，而且三樣在同一條線上。「痴」不是笨，是看反了。「奢」的害處不在花錢，在於它會把人養傲——《論語》「奢則不孫，儉則固。與其不孫也，寧固」，孔子寧可寒酸，也不要不謙遜。「妄想」是《圓覺經》裡病眼所見的「空中花」與天上的第二個月亮：天上本來沒有花，是眼睛的毛病造出來的。看反了，於是往外堆，於是造出根本不存在的東西。而對治它的是「立志」——孔子自述一生，起點就是「吾十有五而志於學」，後面所有的階段都從那個志長出來。把妄想與立志擺在一起看，這一句就通了：兩樣都是心往前面投出去的東西，差別只在有沒有根。所以這一句不是叫人不要想，是叫人把想的力氣接到根上。而「成就」仍然是被動的：是志向成就我。
Three things stripped away, and all three on one line of causation. 痴 is not stupidity; it is seeing things backwards. The harm in 奢 is not the spending but the pride it grows — the Analects: extravagance makes a person overbearing, thrift may make him look shabby, and of the two Confucius would sooner be shabby. 妄想 is the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment’s flowers in empty air and second moon, seen by a diseased eye: there were never flowers up there; the illness produced them. See wrongly, therefore pile things up, therefore invent what does not exist. And the answer is 立志, to plant the will: Confucius dates a whole life from it — at fifteen I set my will on learning — and everything after grows from that planting. Set 妄想 and 立志 side by side and the line opens: both are the mind thrown forward, and the only difference is whether it has a root. So this is not an instruction to stop thinking. It is an instruction to connect the force of your thinking to a root. And 成就 is passive too: the will brings me to completion.
「齷齪」今天多半當骯髒卑鄙用，本義卻是另一件事：器量狹小、拘在小節上出不來。《抱朴子》：「其英異宏逸者，則網羅乎玄黃之表；其拘束齷齪者，則羈紲於籠罩之內。」《近思錄》更直白：「意思齷齪，無由作事。」先有小，才有髒——一個人之所以會生出卑鄙的念頭，多半不是因為他壞，是因為他的心只有那麼大，裝不下別人，於是所有的事都變成「這對我有什麼影響」。而下半句正好對上：真理要展現，需要一個容得下它的地方。心齷齪的人不是看不見真理，是他那個罩子太小，真理進不去。
齷齪 is used today mostly for filth and baseness, but its root sense is something else: narrowness of capacity, being hemmed in by small things. 抱朴子 sets it in a contrast — those of large and soaring temper cast their net beyond heaven and earth; the cramped and constricted are tethered inside a cage. 近思錄 is blunter: a cramped mind gets nothing done. Smallness comes first, and sordidness out of it. A person who produces mean thoughts is usually not wicked; his heart simply has that much room in it, no space for anyone else, so every question turns into “what does this do to me.” And the second half answers it exactly: truth needs somewhere large enough to unfold in. The cramped heart is not blind to truth. Its cage is too small for truth to enter.
第十二句去了「痴」，這一句把三毒補齊：貪、嗔、無明——貪與嗔是兩隻手，無明是那雙看錯了的眼睛。去掉之後是「含和瞹瞹」：「含」是含著、蘊著，不往外噴；「瞹瞹」是昏暗不明。修行修到最後怎麼會是昏暗？把《道德經》「挫其銳，解其分，和其光，同其塵，是謂玄同」擺過來就明白了——光不是不亮了，是不刺人了。而這一句與第十一句正好配成一對：「身明覺醒」是裡面要亮，「含和瞹瞹」是外面要暗，合起來就是和光同塵。一個真的去掉了貪嗔無明的人，不會發光發熱地讓人看見他去掉了；他只是變得柔和、不刺眼。
`BX12` removed 痴; this line completes the three poisons — greed, anger, and 無明, the root unknowing. Greed and anger are the two hands; the unknowing is the pair of eyes that saw wrongly. What fills their place is 含和瞹瞹: 含 is to hold something in, unspent, rather than pour it out; 瞹瞹 is dim, unclear. How does cultivation end in dimness? Set the Daodejing beside it — blunt the sharpness, untie the tangles, soften the light, share the dust; this is called the mysterious sameness. The light is not put out. It stops glaring. And this line pairs exactly with `BX11`: 身明覺醒 is bright within, 含和瞹瞹 is unshowy without, and together they are 和光同塵. Someone who has genuinely put greed, anger and unknowing down does not shine about having done it; he simply becomes gentler and easier to be near.
「忐」是上、心，「忑」是下、心——心一上一下，光看字形就把意思說完了。它與「誑語」放在同一句，是因為兩樣互為因果：心不安的人容易說假話——為了遮掩、為了讓自己好過；而說了假話的人心更不安——因為要記著自己說過什麼，要防著被拆穿；一圈一圈越轉越緊。訓文開的藥是「謹言慎行」，《禮記·緇衣》給的不是訓誡而是方法：「言必慮其所終，而行必稽其所敝」——說話之前先想它會走到哪裡去，做事之前先查它到哪裡會出毛病。所以謹言慎行不是叫人畏首畏尾、少說少做，它是一個往前看的動作；而心一旦不必再替假話善後，忐忑自然就停了。
忐 is 上 over 心 and 忑 is 下 over 心 — the heart going up and down; the graphs say the whole word. It sits in the same line as 誑語, lying speech, because the two cause each other: an unsettled heart finds it easy to lie — to cover something, to get through the moment — and having lied, the heart is less settled still, because now it has to remember what it said and guard against being found out. The coil tightens. The remedy the teaching gives is 謹言慎行, and the Book of Rites offers it not as a scolding but as a method: before speaking, think a word through to where it ends; before acting, examine an act through to where it wears out. So this is not an instruction to be timid and say little. It is a forward-looking act — and once the heart no longer has to clean up after a lie, the churning stops on its own.
動詞又是雙的——「去撤」，去掉並且撤離；而且這是十六句裡唯一一句，下半段不是好事。「旁門」字面是旁邊的門，不是正門，比喻不走正路的途徑。「異端」出自《論語·為政》「攻乎異端，斯害也已」；「攻」字歷來兩解，而這一行的語法把答案指出來了——句末是「攻害我」，受害的是「我」，所以取朱熹「專治、鑽研」一讀的引申：你把心力長期泡在哪裡，哪裡就回過頭來塑造你，甚至戕害你。這一點必須說清楚，因為它很容易被讀歪：這一句講的是什麼東西會反過來傷害我，不是在劃分誰正誰邪的界線；它問的始終是同一件事——你每天餵給自己的是什麼。
而最耐人尋味的是它的句法。前面十五句的下半，來作用「我」的是赤子、是醍醐、是佛慈、是真心、是志向、是真理，都是好的；這最後一句用了一模一樣的句法，只把主語換掉：你不去撤掉它，它就來作用你。十六句的最後一句不是一句許諾，是一句警告——而這也正是一個檢討的班該有的收法。
The verb is doubled once more — 去撤, strip away and clear out — and this is the only one of the sixteen lines whose second half is not a good thing. 旁門 is literally a side gate, not the main one: a way in off the road. 異端 comes from the Analects: 「攻乎異端，斯害也已」. 攻 has been read two ways for centuries, and this line’s own grammar settles which one applies — it ends 攻害我, with 我 as the one harmed. So the sense taken is the extension of 朱熹’s reading, 攻 as to steep oneself in: whatever you soak your attention in over years turns around and shapes you, and can injure you. This has to be said plainly, because the line is easy to read crooked: it is about what will turn back and harm me, not about drawing a boundary between the orthodox and the deviant. Its question is the same question throughout — what are you feeding yourself every day?
And the most striking thing is the syntax. In the previous fifteen lines the force acting on 我 is the newborn’s heart, the finest refinement, the Buddha’s compassion, the true heart, the planted will, truth — all of them good. The last line uses exactly the same construction and changes only the subject: if you do not clear it out, it acts on you. The sixteenth line is not a promise but a warning — which is how a class of self-examination should end.
十六句，每句十字，一字不多一字不少，全部以「去」起頭、以「我」收尾，句句都是「去〔要拿掉的四字〕〔會來的四字〕我」。這不是藏頭的冠頂訓，是排比——把同一個動作做十六次。而在逐句讀之前，有一件事非先看清不可：這十六句的「我」，語法上幾乎都是受詞。 赤子復真我、醍醐灌頂我、佛慈引渡我、真心面對我、身明覺醒我、立志成就我、真理展現我——主動的一方是它們，我是被作用的那一個。換句話說，這十六句講的不是「我要把自己修成什麼」，而是：我只負責把擋住的東西拿開，剩下的事由別的力量來做。這與所借的曲子《菩提明鏡》完全同構——神秀說「時時勤拂拭」，而擦鏡子的人做的事只有一件：把灰拿掉；鏡子的亮不是擦出來的，是它本來就有的。
去掉的東西是分層的。第一句是總綱：《論語》「子絕四」的固、意、必、我一次去盡，回到赤子——而「復」是回來，不是造，本來就在。接著是情緒（忿、深愛憎），是偏斜與細縫（詖行頗心、五蘊釁苟），是苟且與耽溺（苟得苟免、般樂心不在），是態度（玩世不恭），是三句連著的「不真」（人心我相、巧言令色、訑謾據令），是心量（痴奢妄想、齷齪之心），是根本煩惱與言行（貪嗔無明、忐忑誑語），最後是餵養——你長期把心放在哪裡。由淺入深：先是看得見的情緒與言行，再是心的偏斜與容量，最後是三毒，以及你每天餵給自己的東西。中間有好幾組字在句與句之間扣住：第五句的「釁苟」接第六句的「去苟」，第十句的「令色」接第十一句的「據令」，三毒分第十二與第十四兩處補齊，第十一句「身明」（裡面亮）與第十四句「瞹瞹」（外面暗）合成「和光同塵」；洗的動作出現四次而用了四個不同的字（洗滌、濯濯、沐浴、澉），「真」則三見而遞進——真我、真心、真理。
十六句裡只有相鄰的兩句是「被給予」而不是「被拿掉」：第七句的醍醐灌頂與第八句的佛慈引渡——一篇通篇講自力清除的訓文，特意留了兩句給外來的更高力量。而最後一句用了與前十五句一模一樣的句法，只把主語換掉：異端攻害我。你不去撤掉它，它就來作用你。這一句講的是什麼東西會反過來傷害我，不是在劃分誰正誰邪的界線——它問的始終是同一件事：你每天餵給自己的是什麼。這是一個叫「飲水思源」的感恩檢討班，而訓文不從「你該感謝什麼」講起，它從「你身上有什麼要拿掉」講起；因為回到源頭最實在的辦法，就是把源頭以後一層一層加上去的東西拿下來。
Sixteen lines, every one exactly ten characters, every one opening 去 — strip away — and closing 我, me, and every one dividing into the verb, the four characters of what goes, the four characters of what follows, and the self it is done to. This is not an acrostic but anaphora: one gesture performed sixteen times. And before reading them one by one, there is a fact to see clearly — in almost every line, 我 is grammatically the object. The newborn’s heart restores me, the finest refinement is poured over me, the Buddha’s compassion ferries me, the true heart faces me, lucidity wakes me, the planted will completes me, truth brings me to light. Those are the active parties; I am the one acted upon. So these lines are not about making myself into something. They say: my part is to take away what is in the way, and something else does the rest. That is the same shape as the borrowed melody, 〈菩提明鏡〉 — 神秀’s “wipe it constantly,” where the one wiping does exactly one thing, remove the dust. The brightness of a mirror is not produced by polishing. It was already there.
What is removed is arranged in strata. The first line is the head of them all: the four abolitions of the Analects — obstinacy, conjecture, insistence, egotism — cleared at one stroke, returning to the newborn; and the verb is 復, to come back to, not to construct. Then the emotions (anger; loves and hatreds held deep); then slant and hairline cracks (crooked conduct and a leaning heart; the five aggregates and the seams that open out of carelessness); then the half-done and the indulgent; then an attitude, flippancy; then three consecutive lines on the untrue — an untrue self, untrue speech, an untrue face; then the size of the heart (delusion, excess, fantasy; the cramped and sordid); then the root afflictions with word and deed (greed, anger, unknowing; the churning heart and lying speech); and finally what you feed on. Shallow to deep: what is visible in temper and speech, then the heart’s slant and its capacity, then the three poisons, then where you put your attention every day. Several words hook line to line — 釁苟 at the end of the fifth is picked up by 去苟 at the start of the sixth; 令色 in the tenth returns as 據令 in the eleventh; the three poisons are completed across the twelfth and fourteenth; and 身明 (bright within) in the eleventh answers 瞹瞹 (unshowy without) in the fourteenth, the two halves of “soften the light, share the dust.” Washing occurs four times in four deliberately different words, and 真 three times, ascending: true self, true heart, truth.
Only two of the sixteen lines receive rather than remove, and they stand next to each other by design — the last and finest refinement poured over the crown, and the Buddha’s compassion leading across. A teaching otherwise entirely about self-clearing keeps two adjacent lines for what arrives from elsewhere. And the final line uses precisely the same construction as the fifteen before it, changing only the subject: what is off the way turns and does me harm. Fail to sweep it out, and it acts on you. That line is about what will turn back and injure me — not about drawing a boundary between the orthodox and the deviant; its question is the same one running through the whole teaching: what are you feeding yourself? This was a class called 飲水思源, drink the water, remember the source, held for gratitude and self-examination — and the teaching does not begin from what you should be grateful for. It begins from what you have to take off. Because the most practical way back to a source is to remove, layer by layer, everything added since.