佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄 4.27

4.27

Master Zhaoxian of Lu Yuan in Changsha was a Dharma heir of Nanquan, contemporary with Zhaozhou and Zihu. His dynamic sharpness was agile and swift. If someone asked about the teachings, he would expound the teachings for them; if they wanted verses, he would compose verses for them; if you wanted an adept's face-to-face encounter, he would present an adept's encounter for you. Usually Yangshan's dynamic sharpness was foremost. One day, while enjoying the moon together with Changsha, Yangshan pointed at the moon and said, "Everyone has this, yet they cannot use it." Changsha said, "Exactly so; then I employ you to use it." Yangshan said, "You try using it." Changsha kicked Yangshan down with a stomp. Yangshan got up and said, "Senior Uncle is just like a tiger!" Later people called him Tiger Cen. Because one day he returned from roaming the mountains, the head monk, who was also a man in his assembly, asked, "Where has the Venerable come from?" Changsha said, "I come from roaming the mountains." The head monk said, "To what place did you go?" Changsha said, "At first I followed the fragrant grass away; / then I chased the falling flowers back." One must be a person who sits through and cuts off the ten directions before this is possible. When the ancients came and went, they never failed to keep this matter in mind. Look at how host and guest exchanged places, hitting the mark right at the moment, cutting directly, neither sparing the other. Since he was roaming the mountains, why on the contrary did the head monk ask, "To what place did you go?" If it were the Chan fellows of today, they would immediately say, "I went to the Jiashan pavilion." Look at those ancients: not a hair's breadth of principle or calculation, nor any place of fixation. Therefore it is said: "At first I followed the fragrant grass away; / then I chased the falling flowers back." The head monk then followed his meaning and said to him, "It is very much like spring's intent." Changsha said, "It also surpasses autumn dew dripping on lotus blossoms." Xuedou says, "Thanks for the answer." It is a replacement for the final word. It also falls into the two sides, yet in the end it is not in these two sides. Formerly, the scholar Zhang Zhuo was reading the Sutra of the Names of the Thousand Buddhas, and then asked, "Regarding the hundreds of thousands of Buddhas, one only hears their names, but I do not know what lands they dwell in, and whether they still transform living beings or not?" Changsha said, "After Cui Hao inscribed his poem on the Yellow Crane Tower, did you ever inscribe one, Scholar?" Zhuo said, "I have not yet inscribed one." Changsha said, "When you have leisure, it would be good to compose a poem." Tiger Cen's lifelong teaching for others was truly like revolving pearls and turning jade, wanting people to understand immediately face to face. The verse says: