洗心滌慮 Chan Is Stillness
長老聞言，慨然不懼，即對眾言曰：禪者，靜也；法者，度也。靜中之度，非悟不成。悟者，洗心滌慮，脫俗離塵是也。夫人身難得，中土難生，正法難遇：全此三者，幸莫大焉。长老闻言，慨然不惧，即对众言曰：禅者，静也；法者，度也。静中之度，非悟不成。悟者，洗心涤虑，脱俗离尘是也。夫人身难得，中土难生，正法难遇：全此三者，幸莫大焉。
逐句解 Line by line
The elder heard them, and without hesitation or fear addressed the company: Chan is stillness;
The sermon begins here with 曰： and no opening quotation mark, yet it closes with one at the end of the passage after next. Counted over the whole chapter the marks run 117 opening against 118 closing, and walking the block with a depth counter puts the single imbalance exactly here. The 世德堂本 reading is the authority and is set down as printed.
dharma is a crossing over.
度 is dù, to ferry across, and it is the same verb the monks of Fulong used of being saved and Tripitaka used of getting over the thorn ridge. Here it is offered as the definition of dharma itself.
The crossing that is made within stillness cannot be accomplished but by awakening.
The definitions interlock: stillness came from the first, crossing from the second, and this segment binds them together and names what is still missing.
Awakening is this: to wash the heart and scour away care, to slough off the common and leave the dust behind.
Two four-character phrases, each a verb with its object, doubled. The chain of definitions is complete, and its four links run to four, four, eight and twelve characters — each one just long enough to be held in the ear.
Now, a human body is hard to obtain; birth in the Middle Land is hard to come by; the true dharma is hard to meet with. To have all three of these — no good fortune is greater.
難 is nán, difficult, at all three sites, and not the nàn of calamity. 得 heads a clause of its own in 難得 and takes dé.
The sermon opens as a chain of definitions, each one short enough to be held in the ear. Chan is stillness; dharma is crossing over; the crossing made in stillness needs awakening; awakening is washing the heart and leaving the dust. Four links running to four, four, eight and twelve characters, and the last of them turns the whole thing from metaphysics into practice.
The word he chooses for dharma has already appeared three times in this chapter. The monks of Fulong used it of being carried to salvation, in the third passage; Tripitaka and Eight Rules then used it twice of getting over a ridge of thorns. Now the same verb is offered as the definition of the teaching itself, and the novel does not point at the repetition at all.
The three difficulties that follow are a standard formula of Buddhist exhortation, and their job here is to establish stakes. A human body, birth in the Middle Land, the true dharma: to hold all three at once is the rarest of conjunctions, and Tripitaka is telling four immortal trees that they hold none of them.