虛堂和尚語錄 8.33

8.33

Ascending the hall on the Buddha's Parinirvāṇa, a monk asked, "The old fellow Śākya had not yet left Tuṣita before already descending to the royal palace. Why then was there birth and cessation?" The master said, "Were it not for your asking, how would the great assembly know?" The monk said, "Two thousand years have already passed; why is he still blazing brilliantly in the human world?" The master said, "Pointing to a deer and calling it a horse." The master then said: "Temporarily withdrawing the mechanism of transformation, he complied with that request of Pāpīyas; once more displaying skillful means, he manifested the purple-golden body. Thus one sees that today it exists, and tomorrow it is gone. Do you want to see the old fellow Śākya?" He struck his staff.