濟公活佛 慈悲訓示
同德壇 · 2025.06.29 · 壇主班 at 紐約同德佛堂 — Mandarin. The class ran on two floors simultaneously; the Box class-compilation .docx labels this teaching 「樓下」 and the same-day sibling 「樓上」.
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這是二○二五年六月二十九日，紐約同德佛堂壇主班上的一篇慈訓——壇主，就是承擔一處佛堂、守著一個道場的人。那天的課分兩層樓同時進行，這一篇是樓下的。形式很單純：三聯鎮壇詩、一句吾乃、二十一句本訓，沒有訓中訓，沒有語寄，也沒有妙訓；所有的教導都在這二十一句裡，沒有另一層嵌套的文字可以參看。而這二十一句全部是唱的——調寄〈渡紅塵〉，借一首世間熟悉的曲子填上訓詞。讀的時候有一件事要先留意：這篇訓文的話說得非常白，但平白不等於淺。「問自己否真心」「修道不畏與艱辛」「時時感恩快馬加鞭行」，幾乎就是平常說話的樣子；而就在這些大白話中間，坐著一批一字不易的經典成句——顧諟明命、德配天地、三省、好逸惡勞、繁華事散逐香塵、方圓屈伸、真諦、迷津、客身。最硬的典故，塞進了最軟的句子裡；只看見白話會漏掉一半，只盯著典故又會把一首能唱的歌讀成論文。鎮壇詩三聯四十二個字，「無」出現十六次，每一個半句都從「無」起頭：第一聯講因果（貪求既除，煩惱憂愁自然也就沒了源頭），第二聯往裡走一層（私、慾、痴惑；而苦不只從憎來，也從愛來——愛得越深，怕失去的心就越重），第三聯收到人我（「無人無我」出自《金剛經》破四相之義，人我的界線一鬆，爭鬥自己就沒了立足的地方）。十六個「無」全部落在最後三個字之前，清出來的那塊空地，就是為了讓「樂道修」站上去；「樂道」的源頭在《論語·學而》孔子答子貢的「貧而樂」——修這件事本身就是快樂的來源，不必再從別處找。吾乃一句做了四件事，順序本身就是教導：報身分（「爾師濟公」——你們的老師，不是遠遠在上的神明，所以後面的直話才落得穩）、說來意（領了 老Φ之旨而來，不是自作主張）、行禮（進門第一件事是先向 皇Φ參拜——連仙佛進門都先參駕，何況人）、才問人（「各個皆安康」，一句最家常的問候放在整套莊重程序的最後）。本訓二十一句走完一條完整的路：一至四句認病（執著妄念失了方寸，無明常擾，餘心一作用就長出貪愛痴嗔，而「幾個能分假與真」把病歷推到人面前）；五至八句船來了（寶筏是「降」到紅塵裡來的，不是停在岸上等人，而「同心協力」四個字提醒在座各守一堂的壇主：船只有一條）；九至十二句講在紅塵裡怎麼走（方圓出《孟子》，屈伸出《易經》尺蠖之屈；而「行真戒偽」立刻把「方」補上，《莊子·漁父》說「真者，精誠之至也」；第十一句一字不改照搬杜牧〈金谷園〉，讓人自己去站一次那片廢園）；十三、十四句把道理推到頂——真諦不在俗諦之外，所以問的是「在紅塵否明白真諦性」，把修行的地點釘死在此時此地；十五至十七句忽然把話頭轉回自己，「問自己否真心」六個字是本訓最短也最白的一句，前面所有的道理都得先過這六個字；十八至二十句給功夫（三省出《論語·學而》曾子，「滌除」與「洗心」是《道德經》第十章與《易經·繫辭上》兩句焊在一起）；末句十二個字收全篇——醒迷、正己成人、報天恩，而「報」不是還債，是把上天給的恩用同樣的方式往下傳。全篇其實只回答一個問題：人在紅塵裡，怎麼還能修？答案不是離開紅塵——鎮壇詩清掉的是心裡的貪求，不是外面的世界；船是降到紅塵來的；連唱的調子都是世間的調子。從頭到尾，沒有叫人走開，只叫人在原地換一顆心。
This teaching opens before it says anything. Three couplets, forty-two characters, and sixteen of them are the same character: 無, no, without, there is not. No greed, no wanting. No fretting, no vexation, no sorrow. No selfishness, no desire, no delusion. No clinging, no loathing, no bitter grief. No other, no self, no strife. No resentment, no regret. A 鎮壇詩 is the verse that settles the altar — sung first to quiet the room and steady the people in it — and this one settles by subtraction, in the old and deliberate manner of the Heart Sutra, which runs its own chain of negations through the whole apparatus of perception in order to arrive at what is left when nothing is being held. 「無人無我」, no other and no self, is the Diamond Sutra speaking of the marks of person and of self, the two divisions that make every quarrel possible. And then, after fifteen negations, the sixteenth half-line does something none of the others do: 「無怨無悔樂道修」 — no resentment, no regret, and then glad in Dao, cultivating. The one positive. Everything cleared away was cleared for this, so the sixteen negations are not a list of prohibitions but a room being emptied so that one thing can be brought in. Then the teacher arrives and the register changes completely. He does not announce himself with a string of titles; he says your teacher, and then his familiar name. He has borne the Eternal Mother’s decree, come to 同德壇, and before speaking a word of instruction has already made his obeisance to the Sovereign Mother — the courtesies complete, the manners intact. His first act is not to teach but to ask whether every one of them is well. Not the assembly in general: 各個, each and every one. That is the persona carrying the next twenty-one lines — someone who will be blunt about your faults precisely because he asked after your health first. The bluntness starts immediately, and it is a diagnosis in four stages: clinging and false thinking, and the heart loses its bearings; behind them the root not-knowing that never quite lets mind and spirit settle; and then a very precise phrase, 餘心, the leftover mind — whatever is still running once the original nature has been set aside — which does not sit idle but goes into operation, and whose output is greed, craving, delusion and anger. The question that follows is not decoration: how many can tell the false from the true? Very few, is the implied answer, and that is exactly why help had to come. It comes as a boat. The precious raft of the White Era descends into the red dust — and note where it goes. It does not wait offshore for people to swim out; it comes down into the dust. What is asked of those who receive it is stated next, and it is plural: of one heart, joining our strength, we ferry the lost across. To ferry someone across the ford they cannot find is to be, for another person, the answer to a question they could not get answered — and this was said to a room of altar keepers, each holding a hall of their own, so the four characters 同心協力 carry a reminder: there is only one boat. What follows is a short course in how to carry yourself while doing that work, and it is unexpectedly practical. High or low, square or round, able to bend and to stretch — behind it Mencius on the compass and set-square, without which no true circle and no true square, and the Book of Changes on the inchworm that draws itself in precisely in order to extend. Bending here is not capitulation; it is how forward motion works. But flexibility without a core is only pliancy, so the next line supplies the core: act true, guard against pretence, and the heart’s virtue pure. You can be endlessly accommodating in manner; you cannot be even slightly counterfeit in substance. Then the teaching stops arguing and simply quotes. Seven characters lifted whole from a Tang poet standing in the ruins of a pleasure-garden whose owner had his floors strewn with powdered aloes so his guests’ footsteps would leave no mark. That powder is the fragrant dust — the most expensive thing in the poem, and still only dust. It is the single line in the whole teaching quoted word for word from literature, and it is placed exactly where an argument would otherwise need a paragraph. Hence the homely instruction immediately after: see through what lies before your eyes; cultivating Dao is what is real. The literary allusion supplies the grief; the ordinary phrase supplies the instruction. Now the lines lengthen for the teaching’s first peak. Here in the red dust, do you understand the nature of ultimate truth? — and the question is pointedly located. Not can you understand it on retreat; here, in the middle of the ordinary wanting world where the raft came down. The answer is the second peak, and the longest line so far: keep watch on that bright mandate, virtue matched to Heaven and Earth, thin and thick, out to the farthest bound. 顧 is to keep turning back to look — not to achieve the bright nature but to keep checking that you have not lost sight of it — and virtue matched to Heaven and Earth is the Book of Rites describing a virtue as impartial as the sky that covers everything and the ground that carries everything. What the received text writes is thin and thick: the whole span of what the ground bears, from the meagre to the abundant, out to its very limit. It is worth sitting with as written. Heaven’s impartiality is easy to admire; earth’s is harder, because earth carries the thin ground as well as the rich, and does not sort them. From that height the teaching drops straight back into plain speech, and the drop is the point. Cultivate Dao and do not fear the hardship. And then, six characters, the plainest line in the teaching: ask yourself, is the heart real? Nothing classical, nothing decorated, no allusion to look up — just the question, in the words anyone would use. After the Book of Documents and the Book of Rites, the teaching turns and asks whether you meant any of it, and that is the shape of the whole text in miniature: the citations set the standard, and the plain lines ask whether you are actually inside it. The two halves of the work are then named — cultivate Dao and cultivate the heart, serve Dao and give it all your heart — inward and outward, both governed by 心, because cultivation without service becomes private and service without cultivation runs on an empty tank. Then the warning, aimed at one specific failure: loving ease and hating toil, and in the dream you forget that you are a guest. The first half is a physician’s phrase, listed among the reasons a patient cannot be cured — he will not do the hard part. The second reaches for a deposed ruler writing about the one hour of the night when he could forget he was a prisoner, and turns his line outward: you too are a guest, briefly lodged, and comfort is what makes you forget. The remedy is immediate and concrete — follow the sages in threefold self-examination, scour and wash the heart clean — where the washing welds two sources, the mirror of the mind scoured of its blemishes and the sages who wash the heart and withdraw into stillness. Both assume the same thing: the heart is originally clear, and what is required is not construction but cleaning. Do it daily, or the residue accumulates. Then the pace quickens for the close: grateful at every moment, spur the swift horse on. Gratitude here is not a mood, it is the fuel; the horse is already fast, and the teaching says whip it anyway, because the time is short. And the final line, the longest at twelve characters, holds four movements at once — wake the lost, ferry the world’s people, set yourself right, complete others, repay Heaven’s grace — in an order that is not arbitrary. You cannot straighten anyone from a crooked position. The outward work of waking and ferrying rests on the inward work of being someone worth following, and both together are what repaying Heaven’s grace means: the grace is not repaid in feeling, it is repaid in people helped. All of this was sung, to a borrowed melody, in a room of altar keepers on a summer evening — which is why the lines are short, why the diction is the diction of ordinary speech, and why the classical citations sit inside it like stones in a stream rather than ornaments on a shelf. What it asks is not complicated, and that may be the hardest part. Empty the room. Ask whether you meant it. Keep turning back to look at the bright thing you were given. And do not wait for a better hour, because the splendour is already scattering, and the horse is already fast.
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
三聯四十二個字，「無」出現十六次，每一個半句都從「無」起頭——這是《心經》一路否定下去的老手法，用剝除的方式指出那個說不出來的本來。這一聯講的是因果：貪與求一去，心自然安樂；而煩、惱、憂愁本來就是從貪求長出來的，源頭一斷，它們也就沒了著落。
Three couplets, forty-two characters, and sixteen of them are 無 — every half-line opens on it. This is the old and deliberate method of the Heart Sutra, which runs its own chain of negations through the whole apparatus of perception in order to point, by stripping away, at what cannot be said directly. What this couplet states is a causal claim: let greed and wanting go and the heart is at ease and glad of itself; fretting, vexation and sorrow grew out of that greed and wanting in the first place, so once the root is cut they have nowhere left to land.
往裡再走一層：私心、慾望、痴迷惑亂，是比「貪求」更根的東西。下半句點出一個容易被忽略的道理——苦不只從「憎」來，也從「愛」來；人都知道討厭一樣東西會難受，卻不容易承認喜歡一樣東西同樣會生苦，因為愛得越深，怕失去的心就越重。愛與憎在這裡並列，正是要看清這一對是同一件事的兩頭。
A layer further in: selfishness, desire, and the confusion of delusion sit deeper than greed and wanting. The second half names something easily missed — suffering does not come only from loathing, it comes from clinging too. Everyone concedes that disliking a thing hurts; few concede that liking one hurts just as surely, because the deeper the attachment, the heavier the fear of losing it. 愛 and 憎 are set side by side here precisely so you see them as two ends of one thing.
「無人無我」出自《金剛經》破四相之義：把這副由種種條件湊合起來的身心當成真實不變的「我」，對面自然就立起一個「人」，爭鬥就從這一組對立來；人我的界線一鬆，爭鬥自己就沒了立足之地，不必另外去忍。而全詩十六個「無」全部落在最後三個字之前——清出來的那塊空地，就是為了讓「樂道修」站上去。「樂道」的源頭在《論語·學而》孔子答子貢的「貧而樂」：修這件事本身就是快樂的來源，不必再從別處找。
無人無我 is the Diamond Sutra on the breaking of the four marks: take this body-and-mind, assembled out of conditions, for a real and unchanging self, and a person immediately stands opposite it — and strife comes from that pair and nowhere else. Loosen the boundary between person and self and strife simply loses its footing; it does not have to be separately endured. And note that all sixteen negations fall before the last three characters: the ground cleared is ground for 樂道修 to stand on. 樂道 traces to the Analects, “Xue Er,” where Confucius answers Zigong with 「貧而樂」 — cultivation is itself the source of gladness, not a price paid for gladness sought somewhere else.
這三聯鎮壇詩以減法安壇：四十二個字裡十六個「無」，六個半句無一不從「無」字起頭——先剝貪求，再剝私慾痴惑，再剝愛憎，最後剝到人我。這一路否定是經典的老手法：《心經》一連串的「無」不是要人什麼都不要，而是一層一層剝掉眾生死抓不放的東西；「無人無我」則出自《金剛經》破我相、人相——人我的界線一鬆，爭鬥自己就沒了立足的地方，不必另外去忍。而十六個「無」全部落在最後三個字之前：清出來的那塊空地，正是為了讓「樂道修」站上去，這是全詩唯一給出方向的地方。「樂道」的源頭在《論語·學而》的「貧而樂」——窮還能樂，樂的是道本身；所以「樂道修」不是說修道輕鬆，而是說修這件事本身就是快樂的來源，不必再從別處找。鎮壇詩負責清場，接下來的本訓負責點名。
This opening round settles the altar by subtraction: forty-two characters, sixteen of them 無 — no, without — with every one of the six half-lines opening on it. Greed and wanting go first, then selfishness, desire and delusion, then clinging and loathing, and last the oldest division of all, other and self. The method is deliberate and long-established: the Heart Sutra runs its own chain of negations not to leave the reader with nothing, but to strip away layer by layer whatever is being gripped; and no other, no self is the Diamond Sutra breaking the marks of person and of self — the two divisions that make every quarrel possible, so that once they loosen, strife has nowhere left to stand and nothing needs to be endured by force. All sixteen negations fall before the final three characters. The room is emptied so that one thing may be brought into it: 樂道修, glad in Dao, cultivating — the single positive in the poem and its only stated direction. Its root is the Analects, “Xue Er,” where poverty borne gladly is ranked above mere freedom from flattery, because what is enjoyed is Dao itself. So the line does not claim that cultivation is easy; it claims that cultivation is itself the source of the gladness, and that the gladness need not be sought anywhere else. This round clears the ground; the teaching that follows will name what was cleared.
吾乃 Who I Am · recited
短短一句做了四件事，而順序本身就是教導：先報身分（「爾師」——你們的老師，不是遠遠在上的神明，所以後面那些相當直接的話才落得穩），再說來意（領了 老Φ之旨而來，不是自作主張），接著行禮（進了同德佛堂的門，第一件事是先向 皇Φ參拜——連仙佛進門都先參駕，何況人），最後才問人（「各個皆安康」，一句最家常的問候，放在整套莊重程序的末尾）。
One short line does four things, and the order is itself the teaching. First the relation is named — 爾師, your teacher, not a remote power on high, which is why the very direct words that follow land securely. Then the errand: this comes bearing the Eternal Mother’s decree, not on anyone’s own initiative. Then the bow: on entering the hall at 同德, the first act is to pay audience to the Sovereign Mother — if even a divine visitor bows on entering, how much more a person. And only then the people: 各個皆安康, the homeliest greeting there is, placed at the end of an entirely solemn sequence.
短短一句自報身分，做了四件事，而順序本身就是教導。第一是身分：「爾師濟公」——是自家的老師，不是遠遠在上的神明；這個身分立穩了，後面那些相當直接、近乎責備的話才落得住。第二是來意：此行是領了老Φ之旨而來，降壇說法不是個人的行動，上面有源頭。第三是行禮：進了同德的門，第一件事是先參皇Φ——連仙佛進門都先參駕，何況人；修到什麼位次都一樣，源頭永遠在自己之上，禮永遠排在事情前面。第四才問人：「各個皆安康」，一句最家常的問候，收在整套莊重程序的最後。語氣也在這裡定了調——這一篇沒有平日的說笑，從頭到尾懇切，甚至有點急；先問過你好不好，接下來的直話才說得出口。
One line, and its four movements are themselves the instruction. First the identity: your teacher Jigong — the household name, not a string of distant titles — and it is that footing which lets the blunt talk that follows land without wounding. Then the errand: this descent is borne on the Eternal Mother’s decree, so the teaching has a source above whoever delivers it, and is nobody’s private undertaking. Then the courtesy: on stepping through the door at 同德壇, the first act is obeisance before the Sovereign Mother — if even an immortal bows on entering, how much more everyone else; whatever station one reaches, the source remains above, and the bow comes before the business. Only then the question, and it is the most ordinary sentence in the whole teaching: is every one of you well? — 各個, each and every one, placed at the very end of a formal sequence rather than the start. The register is set here too. None of the usual laughter: earnest from first word to last, and faintly hurried — the manner of one who asks after your health first precisely so as to be direct afterward.
本訓 The Teaching · sung to 〈渡紅塵〉
「方寸」是心的別稱——古人認為心臟不過一寸見方，就用「方寸之地」代指人心；《列子·仲尼》寫醫師見龍叔之心「方寸之地虛矣」，日常說的「方寸大亂」也是這個意思。「妄念」是虛妄不實的念頭，《楞嚴經》說眾生生死相續，正因不認得那個本來清淨光明的真心，成天用著虛妄的念頭；「執著」則是念頭起了之後抓住不放——喜歡的人、事、東西、看法，握在手裡鬆不開。一執著、一起妄念，這顆能作主的心就當不了家了。
方寸, the square inch, is the old name for the heart — the reckoning being that the organ is about an inch across, so 方寸之地 came to stand for the human heart; the Liezi, “Zhongni,” has the physician looking into Long Shu’s heart and finding 「方寸之地虛矣」, and the everyday phrase 方寸大亂 carries the same sense. 妄念 are thoughts that are not true: the Śūraṅgama Sūtra says beings continue in birth and death precisely because they do not recognize the ever-abiding, pure and luminous true mind, and spend their days running on false thought instead. 執著 is what happens after the thought arises — the grip that will not open on a person, a matter, an object, an opinion. Cling and think falsely, and the heart that ought to govern can no longer keep its own house.
妄念又是從哪裡來的？從「無明」來——根本上的不明白：不明白自己是誰，不明白這一切是怎麼回事。它不是偶爾糊塗，是底層一直開著的那個糊塗，所以說「常擾」：不是偶爾擾一次，是沒有停過。被擾的結果，是心思與精神靜不下來、清不起來。
Where do false thoughts come from? From 無明 — the root not-knowing: not knowing who you are, not knowing what any of this is. It is not an occasional lapse but the layer of unknowing that never switches off, which is why the line says 常擾 — not troubled now and then, never once stopped. What is troubled is the capacity to settle and to see clearly: mind and spirit cannot come to rest.
「餘心」不是常見的詞，這裡按受訓的原字讀：本性以外剩下來的那個心——人本有一個清淨的真心，把真心擱在一邊之後，剩下的那些殘餘習氣、多出來的計較，就是「餘心」。它不會閒著，一「作用」起來，長出來的就是貪愛痴嗔：貪是對順境的黏著，愛是對人事物的染著不捨，痴是顛倒不明，嗔是對逆境的排斥與火氣。
餘心 is not a standard term, and it is read here from the received graph as written: the mind that is left over once the original nature is set aside. A person has a true mind, clear from the start; put it to one side and what remains — the residual habit-energy, the surplus calculating — is 餘心. It does not sit idle. Once it 作用, goes into operation, what grows out of it is greed, craving, delusion and anger: 貪, the stickiness toward what is pleasant; 愛, the attachment to people and things that will not release them; 痴, the upside-down not-seeing; 嗔, the recoil and heat toward what is unwelcome.
全篇第一個問句，而且問得不客氣。修道人常說「借假修真」——這個身體是暫時的、會壞的，是「假」；藉著這個假的身體去修那個不壞的本性，才是「真」。道理人人會講，難的是臨事的時候還分得出來：錢、名、關係、面子，哪一樣不是當下看起來最真？前三句是病理，這一句是把病歷推到你面前。
The first question in the teaching, and it is not asked politely. Cultivators say 借假修真 — this body is temporary and will perish, so it is the false; using that false body to cultivate the imperishable nature is the true. Anyone can state the doctrine. The difficulty is telling them apart in the moment, when money, reputation, relationships and face each present themselves as the most real thing in the room. The first three lines are the pathology; this line pushes the chart across the desk to you.
「寶筏」是佛門的老比喻，出自《金剛經》的筏喻：法就像過河的筏子，是用來渡的工具，不是拿來背著走的家當；到了岸，筏就該放下。「紅塵」本來是實景——班固〈西都賦〉寫京城車馬揚起的塵土「紅塵四合，煙雲相連」，後來借去指這個熱鬧、忙亂、名利交錯的人世間。而要緊的是那個「降」字：船不是停在清淨處等人去找，是直接降到這片塵土裡來的。
寶筏 is an old Buddhist figure, from the raft parable of the Diamond Sutra: the teaching is a raft for crossing a river, a tool for getting over, not property to be shouldered afterward — at the far shore the raft is set down. 紅塵 was originally a literal sight; Ban Gu’s “Rhapsody on the Western Capital” describes the dust thrown up by carriage traffic in the capital, 「紅塵四合，煙雲相連」, and the phrase was later borrowed for this crowded, busy world where name and gain cross each other. What matters most in this line is 降: the boat is not moored somewhere clean waiting to be found. It comes down into the dust itself.
「津」是渡口。《論語·微子》記孔子路過，叫子路向田裡的長沮、桀溺問渡口在哪裡，「問津」二字從此有了探問出路的意思；後來以「迷津」講眾生在生死苦海裡迷了方向、找不到渡口。所以「渡迷津」不只是自己過河，是替找不到渡口的人把渡口指出來。而這一句真正的重量在「同心協力」四個字——這是壇主班上說的話，在座的都是各自守著一處佛堂的人，各有各的道場、各有各的難處，而船只有一條。
津 is a river crossing. The Analects, “Wei Zi,” records Confucius passing two men at work in the fields and sending Zilu to ask them where the ford is — and from that 問津 came to mean asking after a way through. 迷津 later named the condition of beings lost in the sea of birth and death, unable to find the crossing at all. So 渡迷津 is not merely getting yourself across; it is pointing out the ford to someone who cannot find it. And the real weight of the line is in its first four characters. 同心協力 was said in an altar keepers’ class, to people each holding a hall of their own, each with their own practice ground and their own difficulties — and there is only one boat.
「沉淪」原意是陷進水裡，引申為陷落在苦與惑裡出不來；「性」是自性、本性。本性本來是明的，被無明和慾望蓋住，就像明鏡蒙塵——人還在，但那個光顯不出來。而前面加上「不再虛度」四個字，等於先承認了一件事：在此之前，已經虛度過了。
沉淪 means literally to sink beneath water, extended to being caught in suffering and confusion with no way to climb out; 性 is the original nature. That nature is bright of itself, and when not-knowing and desire cover it over it is like a bright mirror under dust — the person is still there, but the light cannot show. And putting 不再虛度 in front concedes something before it exhorts anything: up to now, the days have already been squandered.
「愿」在這裡就是「願」，是立下的誓願；佛門四弘誓願，《六祖壇經》作「自心眾生無邊誓願度」云云，修道人立願也是同一件事。但這一句的分量不在「愿」字，在最後三個字：發真心。願立得再大，若心不真，就只是話——問的不是你的願夠不夠大，是你的心真不真；這個問法，到第十六句還要再問一次。
愿 here is 願, the vow formally taken. The great vows of this practice appear in the Platform Sutra as 「自心眾生無邊誓願度」 and the rest, and a cultivator’s vow is the same act. But the weight of this line is not on 愿; it is on the last three characters, 發真心. However large the vow, if the heart behind it is not real it is only words. The question asked is not whether your vow is big enough but whether your heart is true — and it will be asked again, in the same word, at line sixteen.
「方圓」出自《孟子·離婁上》：離婁眼力再好、公輸班手藝再巧，「不以規矩，不能成方員」。「屈伸」出自《易經·繫辭下》：「尺蠖之屈，以求信也」——尺蠖蟲把身子彎起來，是為了往前伸；所以「屈」不是輸，是為了「伸」。合起來就是：面對地位比自己高的、比自己低的，該方的時候方，該圓的時候圓，能彎得下來也伸得出去。這不是圓滑——圓滑是沒有立場，而這裡的前提是心裡那個「方」始終沒動。
方圓 comes from Mencius, “Li Lou I”: Li Lou’s eye and Gongshu Ban’s hand were the sharpest and finest of their age, and still 「不以規矩，不能成方員」 — without compass and set-square, no true circle and no true square. 屈伸 comes from the Book of Changes, Great Treatise: 「尺蠖之屈，以求信也」 — the inchworm draws itself in in order to extend, so bending is not defeat, it is what the stretching is made of. Together: with those above you and those below you, be square when squareness is called for and round when roundness is, able to bend down and able to reach out. This is not slickness — slickness has no position at all, whereas here the premise is that the square within has never once moved.
「真」在道家是很高的境界。《莊子·漁父》說：「真者，精誠之至也。不精不誠，不能動人。」勉強哭的雖悲而不哀，勉強發怒的雖嚴而不威——裝出來的，一點感染力都沒有。「純」字則見於《中庸》「文王之德之純……純亦不已」，純而且不間斷：所謂純，是裡面沒有夾雜——做一件好事就是做一件好事，不夾帶「讓人看見」「將來有用」；夾雜一分，純就少一分。
真 is a high attainment in the Daoist register. The Zhuangzi, “The Old Fisherman,” says 「真者，精誠之至也。不精不誠，不能動人」 — forced weeping is sorrowful but does not grieve, forced anger is severe but does not awe; what is put on has no power to move anyone. 純 appears in the Doctrine of the Mean — 「文王之德之純……純亦不已」 — pure and also unbroken. Purity here means nothing adulterating the act: a good deed done is simply a good deed done, carrying no admixture of being seen or of being useful later. Every part of admixture is a part of purity lost.
全篇唯一一句一字不改照搬過來的文學名句，出自杜牧〈金谷園〉：「繁華事散逐香塵，流水無情草自春。」金谷園是西晉富豪石崇的園子，奢華到用香料的碎屑鋪地，所以說「香塵」。杜牧站在那片廢園前面寫下這句：當年那些繁華的事，都跟著那點香塵散掉了，而流水照樣流、草照樣綠——天地根本不記得。這裡不必多說道理，只讓你自己去站一次那個位置。
The one line in the teaching carried over word for word from literature, from Du Mu’s “Golden Valley Garden”: 「繁華事散逐香塵，流水無情草自春。」 (Tang poetry sits outside our verified corpus; the attribution is secure and carried on research authority.) The Golden Valley Garden belonged to Shi Chong, a Western Jin magnate wealthy enough to have his floors strewn with powdered aromatics — which is where the fragrant dust comes from. Du Mu stood in front of that ruined garden and wrote this: all the splendour of those days scattered off after that little dust, while the water runs on and the grass greens by itself — Heaven and Earth simply do not remember. Nothing needs arguing here. You are only made to stand once in that spot.
「看開」不是想通了就算了的自我安慰，是真的看穿眼前這些東西的分量——看穿了，心力才騰得出來，才知道「修道」這件事是真的。而這句的「真」也回頭接上第四句的「幾個能分假與真」：分得清了，才看得開；看得開了，才知道哪一邊是真。
看開 is not the self-consolation of having talked yourself round; it is actually seeing what the things in front of you weigh. See that, and attention is freed — and only then does 修道 register as the real thing. And the 真 of this line reaches back to 「幾個能分假與真」 four lines earlier: telling them apart is what makes seeing through possible, and seeing through is what shows you which side is which.
「真諦」是佛門二諦裡的一諦。《中論》說「諸佛依二諦，為眾生說法」——一層是俗諦，就是日常認知裡的道理，桌子是桌子、你是你、我是我，這些在世間都真實可用；另一層是真諦，是超越了名字與分別之後、聖者親證的那個究竟道理。要緊的是這兩層不是斷開的：真諦不在俗諦之外，就在俗諦當下。所以問的不是「能不能離開紅塵去見真諦」，而是「在紅塵」否明白——這一問把修行的地點釘死了：不是等清淨了再說，就是現在，就是這裡。
真諦 is one of the two truths. The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā says 「諸佛依二諦，為眾生說法」 — one layer is the conventional truth, the reckoning of ordinary knowledge in which a table is a table and you are you and I am I, all of it real and usable at that level; the other is the ultimate truth, what the sages realize directly once names and distinctions have been passed. What matters is that the two are not cut apart: the ultimate is not somewhere outside the conventional, it is right here inside it. So the question is not can you leave the red dust and go find the ultimate truth — it is 在紅塵, do you understand it here. That fixes the location of practice: not once things have quieted down, but now, in this place.
「顧諟明命」出自《尚書·太甲上》，《大學》引來解釋「明明德」：「顧」是回頭看、時時看顧，「諟」是審視校正，「明命」是上天賦給人的那份光明本性——時時回過頭來，審視自己天生的那份光明。這是修身的第一步，也是最難持續的一步，因為它要求的不是做成一件大事，是每天回頭看一次。「德配天地」出自《禮記·經解》：天覆蓋萬物不挑對象，地承載萬物不挑對象，德修到跟天地一樣沒有私心。末三字按受訓的原字讀：「薄」與「厚」是一對——薄的與厚的、貧瘠的與豐饒的，「垠」是邊際；天地所承載的，從最薄到最厚、一直到它的邊際，沒有一樣被漏掉、被挑剔。德要修到這個地步，不是只對容易愛的人好。（《中庸》「博厚配地」聲音相近，讀時不妨一併聽見；此處依受訓原字解讀，不作任何更動。）
顧諟明命 comes from the Book of Documents, “Tai Jia I,” and is quoted in the Great Learning to unpack 明明德: 顧 is to keep turning back and watching over, 諟 is to examine and set right, 明命 is the bright nature Heaven has given you — so, keep turning back to examine the light you were born with. This is the first step of self-cultivation and the hardest to sustain, because what it asks for is not one great accomplishment but a backward glance every single day. 德配天地 comes from the Book of Rites, “Jing Jie”: Heaven covers all things without choosing among them and Earth carries all things without choosing among them, and virtue is cultivated until it is as free of private preference as they are. The last three characters are read from the received graphs: 薄 and 厚 are a pair — the thin and the thick, the meagre and the abundant — and 垠 is the limit. What Heaven and Earth bear runs from the thinnest to the thickest and out to that very edge, with nothing left out and nothing sorted. Virtue is to be cultivated to that point: not kindness only toward the people who are easy to love. (The Doctrine of the Mean’s 「博厚配地」 sounds nearly the same and may be heard alongside it; here the received graph is read as written and nothing is altered.)
路不好走，但不怕。要注意，這句話並沒有承諾路會變好走：修行路上的逆境、磨難、別人的誤解、自己心裡的掙扎，在這條道上一向不被當成障礙，而被當成磨刀石——不磨，心性顯不出來。所以「不畏」不是嘴硬，是明白了這些東西的用處。
The road is hard, and the instruction is not to fear it. Notice that the line makes no promise that the road will get easier. On this path adversity, trials, other people’s misunderstanding and one’s own inner struggle have never been counted as obstacles but as the whetstone — unground, the nature does not show. So 不畏 is not bravado; it is having understood what the difficulty is for.
六個字，是本訓最短的一句，也是最直接的一句。前面十五句講了那麼多道理、引了那麼多經典，到這裡忽然停下來，只問一句：你自己，是不是真心？這一問和第八句的「發真心」是同一個字、同一件事，一前一後夾住了中間所有的教導——方圓屈伸、行真戒偽、看開繁華、顧諟明命，功夫做得再細，如果起點的心不真，全部落空。話說得這麼短、這麼白，就是不讓人有地方躲。
Six characters, the shortest line in the teaching and the most direct. After fifteen lines of doctrine and citation it stops abruptly and asks one thing: you — is your heart real? This is the same word and the same matter as 發真心 at line eight, and the two of them bracket every instruction in between. Square and round, bending and stretching, acting true and guarding against pretence, seeing through splendour, keeping watch on the bright mandate — however fine the work, if the heart at the starting point is not real, all of it comes to nothing. It is said this short and this plain so that there is nowhere to hide.
把功夫分成對內、對外兩面。「修道」是往裡的：修正自己的念頭、脾氣、習慣，所以說「修心」——修到最後，修的其實只有一顆心。「辦道」是往外的：開佛堂、渡人、承擔道場的事務，所以說「盡心」——不是做完就好，是盡了心才算。兩面缺一不可：只修不辦，道理都懂卻用不出來；只辦不修，事情做了很多，脾氣毛病一樣沒少，久了自己先撐不住。守一處佛堂的人每天面對的都是「辦」，最容易漏掉的就是「修」。
The work is divided into an inward face and an outward one. 修道 faces inward — correcting your own thoughts, temper and habits — which is why its pair is 修心: in the end what is cultivated is only a heart. 辦道 faces outward — opening a hall, bringing people to Dao, carrying a temple’s practical burdens — which is why its pair is 盡心: finishing the task is not the measure, giving it the whole heart is. Neither survives alone. Cultivate without serving and you understand the doctrine but cannot put it to use; serve without cultivating and a great deal gets done while the temper and the faults stay exactly where they were, until you are the first to give out. Someone keeping a hall faces 辦 every day, and 修 is precisely what slips.
「好逸惡勞」出自《後漢書·郭玉傳》：東漢名醫郭玉說替權貴看病有四難，最後一難就是病人自己貪安逸、不肯配合，藥再對也難好——修道也是治病，藥開了，人自己不肯動，誰也沒辦法。「夢裡忘客身」化用李煜〈浪淘沙令〉的「夢裡不知身是客，一晌貪歡」：亡了國、被俘北去的人，只有在夢裡才忘得掉自己是個寄人籬下的客。人在天地之間本來就是過客，這一生是借住，不是產業；一貪安逸，就在這場人生大夢裡賴著不肯醒，把暫住當成永久，把借來的當成自己的。
好逸惡勞 comes from the Book of the Later Han, in the biography of Guo Yu: the Eastern Han physician lists four difficulties in treating the powerful, the last being that the patient loves ease and will not cooperate, so that even the right medicine fails. Cultivation is also a treatment — the prescription is written, and if the person will not move, no one can help. 夢裡忘客身 reworks Li Yu’s “Lang Tao Sha Ling,” 「夢裡不知身是客，一晌貪歡」 (outside our verified corpus, carried on research authority): a man who had lost his kingdom and been carried north could forget he was a lodger only in dreams. A person between Heaven and Earth is a passing guest to begin with — this life is borrowed lodging, not an estate — and to love ease is to linger in that great dream refusing to wake, taking the temporary for the permanent and the borrowed for your own.
「三省」出自《論語·學而》曾子：「吾日三省吾身：為人謀而不忠乎？與朋友交而不信乎？傳不習乎？」——要留意那三個問題有多平常：辦事、交友、複習功課；反省不必從很高的地方開始，就從今天做過的事開始。「滌除洗心」是兩句經典焊在一起：「滌除」出自《道德經》第十章「滌除玄覽，能無疵乎」，是把心裡那面照見萬物的鏡子洗乾淨；「洗心」出自《易經·繫辭上》「聖人以此洗心，退藏於密」，是洗完之後不張揚。合起來就是把心洗乾淨，而且不必說給人聽。
三省 comes from the Analects, “Xue Er,” where Zengzi says 「吾日三省吾身：為人謀而不忠乎？與朋友交而不信乎？傳不習乎？」 Notice how ordinary those three checks are — doing work for someone, keeping faith with friends, practising what was taught. Self-examination need not begin somewhere lofty; it begins with what you actually did today. 滌除洗心 welds two classical phrases together: 滌除 from chapter 10 of the Daodejing, 「滌除玄覽，能無疵乎」, scouring clean the mirror in the heart that reflects all things; and 洗心 from the Book of Changes, Great Treatise, 「聖人以此洗心，退藏於密」, which is the washing followed by no announcement of it. Together: wash the heart clean, and do not tell anyone you did.
兩個動作接在一起，順序不能顛倒。先「時時感恩」——時時想著自己受過多少恩：能得遇這條道、能有佛堂可修、能有人一路帶著；然後才「快馬加鞭」，快馬還要再抽一鞭，跑得更快。為什麼感恩之後是加速？因為感恩若只停在感覺上，就只是一種心情；真的知道自己欠了多少，腳步自然快得起來。時間是有限的。
Two actions in sequence, and the sequence cannot be reversed. First 時時感恩 — holding in mind at every moment how much grace has been received: that this path could be met at all, that there is a hall to cultivate in, that people carried you along the way. Only then 快馬加鞭, the already-fast horse given one more stroke to run faster still. Why should acceleration follow gratitude? Because gratitude that stops at feeling is only a mood; someone who genuinely knows how much is owed finds that their pace quickens on its own. The time is limited.
十二個字收全篇，三件事一口氣說完。「醒迷渡世人」回頭接上第六句的「同心協力渡迷津」——那時候說的是有一條船，現在說的是誰去划、划給誰；而要叫醒別人，自己得先醒。「正己成人」出自《論語》兩處：〈子路〉「其身正，不令而行；其身不正，雖令不從」，〈顏淵〉「君子成人之美，不成人之惡」——這四個字的次序不能換，先「正己」才談得上「成人」，自己還歪著，去扶別人只會把人扶倒。「報天恩」是最後三個字，也是前面所有事情的理由：「報」不是還債，上天給的恩，只能用同樣的方式往下傳，才叫報。
Twelve characters close the teaching, three things said in one breath. 醒迷渡世人 reaches back to 「同心協力渡迷津」 at line six: that line said there is a boat, and this one says who rows it and for whom — and to wake anyone else, you have to be awake first. 正己成人 comes from the Analects in two places: “Zi Lu,” 「其身正，不令而行；其身不正，雖令不從」, and “Yan Yuan,” 「君子成人之美，不成人之惡」. The order of the four characters cannot be swapped — 正己 comes first and only then 成人; still leaning yourself, you reach out to steady someone and only pull them over. 報天恩 is the last three characters and the reason for everything before them: 報 is not the settling of a debt, because grace given from above can only be repaid by being passed on further in the same way.
二十一句本訓全部是唱的，走的是一條完整的路。開頭四句是診斷，一層深過一層：一執著、一起妄念，那顆能作主的心就當不了家；再問妄念從何而來，答案是「無明」——底層一直開著的那個不明白，所以說「常擾」，不是偶爾擾一次。第三句點出「餘心」：本性以外剩下來的那個心，是把真心擱在一邊之後殘餘的習氣與多出來的計較；它一「作用」，出來的就是貪愛痴嗔。前三句講病理，第四句把病歷推到人面前——「幾個能分假與真」。緊接著的四句放下一條船：白陽的寶筏是「降」到紅塵裡來的，不停在清淨處等人去找；《金剛經》的筏喻本就說明白，筏是渡河的工具，不是背著走的家當。「同心協力渡迷津」的「津」是渡口——《論語·微子》裡孔子使子路問津，「迷津」便是找不到渡口的人；渡迷津不只是自己過河，是替人把渡口指出來。這是壇主班上說的話：在座各守一處佛堂，各有各的難處，而船只有一條。「不再虛度」四個字等於承認了此前確曾虛度；而立願的重量不在願有多大，在最後三個字——發真心。
第九至十四句先說在紅塵裡怎麼走，再把道理推到頂。待人接物要能隨上下方圓而屈伸：《易經·繫辭下》說「尺蠖之屈，以求信也」——屈不是輸，是為了伸。但圓融若沒有裡面那個「方」就成了圓滑，所以下一句立刻補上「行真戒偽心德純」：《莊子》說「真者，精誠之至也」，裝出來的一點感染力都沒有；而「純」是裡面不夾雜，夾雜一分，純就少一分。第十一句一字不改照搬杜牧〈金谷園〉的「繁華事散逐香塵」——那座以香屑鋪地的園子如今只剩荒草，最貴的東西也不過是塵；不必多說道理，你去看那座園子還在不在，「看開眼前修道真」自然是站過之後的結論。接著兩句忽然拉長，因為道理在這裡推到了頂：問的不是能不能離開紅塵去見真諦，而是「在紅塵」否明白真諦性——修行的地點就此釘死在此時此地。而答案落在《尚書》、《大學》的「顧諟明命」與《禮記》的「德配天地」：「顧」是時時回過頭來審視自己天生的那份光明，難的不是做成一件大事，是每天回頭看一次；德要配得上天地，而天地承載萬物從不挑對象——依受訓原字作「薄厚垠」，從最薄的到最厚的、一直到邊際，沒有一樣被漏掉、被挑剔。
道理推到頂之後，話頭立刻轉回聽的人身上。修道不畏艱辛，但這句並沒有承諾路會變好走；緊接著是全篇最短、最白的一句——「問自己否真心」，六個字，不讓人有地方躲。它和前面「渡眾愿發真心」是同一件事，一前一後夾住了中間所有的功夫：方圓屈伸、行真戒偽、看開繁華、顧諟明命，做得再細，起點的心若不真，全部落空。「修道修心辦道盡心」則把功夫分成往裡與往外兩面，對守一處佛堂的人尤其切題——每天面對的都是「辦」，最容易漏掉的就是「修」。接下來點名一種很具體的失敗：好逸惡勞，在人生這場大夢裡賴著不醒，把借住當成產業，忘了自己只是過客。解方也同樣具體——效法聖賢，照《論語·學而》曾子「三省」的辦法每天回頭檢查一遍；再以《道德經》第十章的「滌除」與《易經·繫辭上》的「洗心」合成「滌除洗心淨」：把心洗乾淨，而且不必說給人聽。然後「時時感恩快馬加鞭行」，兩個動作的順序不能顛倒——感恩若只停在感覺上就只是一種心情，真知道自己欠了多少，腳步自然快得起來。全篇收在十二個字：醒迷渡世人、正己成人、報天恩。次序同樣不能換，自己還歪著去扶別人，只會把人扶倒；而上天給的恩，只能用同樣的方式往下傳，才叫報。
All twenty-one lines of the teaching were sung, and they walk one complete road. The first four are diagnosis, each cutting deeper than the last: cling, let thought run untrue, and the heart that was meant to govern can no longer steer. Ask where the untrue thought comes from and the answer is 無明, the root not-knowing — not an occasional lapse but a confusion running underneath everything, which is why it keeps troubling mind and spirit. Then the precise term: 餘心, the leftover mind — whatever residue of habit and calculation is still running once the original nature has been set aside. It does not sit idle; it goes into operation, and its output is greed, craving, delusion and anger. Three lines of pathology, and then the case file is handed to the reader: how many can tell the false from the true? The next four lines put a boat in the water. The White Era’s precious raft descends into the red dust — it does not wait offshore in some clean place for people to swim out to it — and the Diamond Sutra’s figure already settled what a raft is: the means of crossing, not baggage to be carried once across. 迷津 is the ford one cannot find; in the Analects Confucius sends his student to ask two hermits where the crossing is, and to ferry someone across the 迷津 is to become, for another person, the answer they could not get. The line asks for it in the plural — of one heart, joining our strength — and it was said to a room of altar keepers, each holding a hall of their own with troubles of their own: there is only one boat. No more squandering the days concedes that days have in fact been squandered. And the weight of the vow falls not on its size but on its last three characters: send it out from a true heart.
Lines nine through fourteen first teach how to carry yourself in the dust, then push the argument to its height. High or low, square or round, bend and stretch: the Book of Changes, in the Great Treatise, says the inchworm draws itself in precisely in order to extend — bending is not defeat, it is how forward motion works. But suppleness with no core is mere pliancy, so the next line supplies the core: act true, guard against pretence; the heart’s virtue pure. The Zhuangzi calls 真 the utmost of undivided sincerity, and says what is forced has no power to move anyone; and purity here means nothing mixed in — every admixture of let it be seen, let it be useful later, subtracts exactly that much purity. The eleventh line is lifted whole, word for word, from Du Mu’s poem on the Jin Valley Garden: splendour scattered and gone, chasing the fragrant dust. The garden whose floors were strewn with powdered aloes is a field of weeds now, and the most expensive thing in it was still only dust. No argument is offered, because none is needed — go and see whether the garden is still there — and see through what lies before your eyes; cultivating Dao is what is real is simply the conclusion of having stood there. Then two lines suddenly lengthen, because the teaching has reached its peak. The question is not whether you could understand ultimate truth by leaving the red dust, but whether you understand it here in the red dust — which nails the place of cultivation to this moment and this room. The answer arrives through 顧諟明命 from the Book of Documents, recited again in the Great Learning, and 德配天地 from the Book of Rites: 顧 is to keep turning back to examine the bright nature you were given — the difficulty is not accomplishing something great, it is looking back once every day — and virtue is to be matched to Heaven and Earth, which carry all things without sorting them. As received, the line reads 薄厚垠: from the thinnest ground to the thickest, out to the farthest bound, with nothing left out and nothing found unworthy.
From that height the teaching turns straight back to the person listening. Cultivate Dao and do not fear the hardship — with no promise attached that the road will get easier. And then the shortest and plainest line in the whole teaching: ask yourself: is the heart real? Six characters, with nowhere to hide behind them. It is the same question as send the vow out from a true heart, and the two of them bracket every practice in between — bending and stretching, acting true and refusing pretence, seeing through splendour, keeping watch on the bright mandate. However fine the practice, if the heart at the start is not real, all of it comes to nothing. Cultivate Dao, cultivate the heart; serve Dao, and give it all your heart then divides the work into its inward and outward halves, and lands with particular force on people who keep a hall: what they face daily is the serving, and what quietly goes missing is the cultivating. The failure is then named exactly — loving ease and hating toil, lingering in the great dream rather than waking from it, mistaking lodging for property, forgetting that one is a guest here. The remedy is equally concrete: follow the sages, and check yourself daily the way Zengzi does in the Analects, “Xue Er”; then scour and wash the heart clean, welding 滌除 from chapter ten of the Daodejing to 洗心 from the Great Treatise of the Book of Changes — wash the heart, and do not announce that you have. Grateful at every moment, spur the swift horse on: the order cannot be reversed, because gratitude that stops at a feeling is only a mood, and someone who truly knows how much has been given finds their pace quickening of itself. The whole teaching closes in twelve characters — wake the lost and carry the world’s people across; set yourself right and complete others; repay Heaven’s grace. That order is fixed as well: help offered from a crooked position only topples the person you meant to steady. And grace received can only be repaid by being passed on in the same form it arrived.