宏智禪師廣錄 5.44

5.44

At an informal gathering, [the master] said: "The cold weather has troubled you brothers to come forward. What should be said to hit the mark? If one speaks of the buddhas and patriarchs, one buries oneself; if one speaks of Chan and the Way, one implicates the former masters of our lineage. If we merely disperse like this, it would also be labor without result. Since it cannot be avoided, let us bring up a public case for everyone to deliberate upon. It is remembered: Master Yangshan pointed to a snow lion and said, 'Is there anything that surpasses this color?' Yunmen said, 'At that very moment, I would have pushed it over.' Xuedou said, 'He only knows how to push it over, but cannot help it back up.'"
The master said: "In the monastic groves, many deliberate on this saying as an encounter of sharp wit. Does that hit the mark or not? If not like that, how should it be? Tonight, Senior Monk Zhengjue will not spare his two eyebrows: I will reach out a hand from the side and meet the ancients. Yangshan's talking like that is much like a bolt of silk on a single loom: Yunmen is adept at cutting away the excess, and Xuedou is uniquely skilled at mending what is lacking. Each of the three venerable elders has his strength. In the end, whom should patch-robed monks take as their standard? 'I only wish that the spring wind would exert more strength, / blowing it all into my gate at once.' If you understand it in this way, then you possess the hand that kills and gives life, and are endowed with the eye that sees in every direction. Not only will you meet adversaries on all eight fronts at the gate of reward and transformation, but you will also crisscross freely atop the crown of Vairocana. If it is not yet so for you, I cannot help but repeat it in verse: / A patch-robed monk's true identity, / Perfect and bright, transcends all kinds. / One must directly push it over, / Yet one must also help it back up. / The jade horse drinks dry the spring of the bright moon; / The mud ox plows up the ground of lapis lazuli. / Bearing horns and wearing fur, he comes from among the different species; / In the heavens and the human world, how many can there be?"