佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄 6.24

6.24

Xuedou is particularly adept at appending annotations. He is a descendant under Yunmen; in every single phrase he is equipped with the tongs and hammer of the three phrases. At the place difficult to speak of, he speaks it out; at the place that cannot be cleared away, he clears it away. Going to its critical point, he versifies it, saying directly: "Hares and horses have horns; oxen and sheep have no horns." And tell me, why do hares and horses have horns, while oxen and sheep have no horns? If you can penetrate the preceding dialogue, only then will you know that Xuedou has a way of helping people. There are those who mistakenly understand, saying: "Not speaking is precisely speaking; having no phrase is having a phrase; hares and horses have no horns, yet he says they have horns; oxen and sheep have horns, yet he says they have no horns." This has no connection whatsoever! Little do they know that the ancients underwent thousands of transformations and manifested such spiritual powers solely to shatter your ghost-cave of phantoms. If you can penetrate it, it does not take even the single word "complete." "Hares and horses have horns; oxen and sheep have no horns. Not a single strand of hair, not a single hair-tip; like mountains, like peaks." These four lines are just like a single wish-fulfilling jewel; Xuedou has spat it out entirely whole before you. The concluding parts all decide the case on the basis of the confession: "The golden holy relics are still present now; white waves surging to the heavens—where can they be placed?" This versifies the words of Shishuang and Taiyuan Fu. Why is there nowhere to place them? "Returning to the West with a single sandal, it was once lost." A spiritual turtle dragging its tail—this is where Xuedou turns about to help people. An ancient said, "He investigates living phrases, not dead phrases." Since it was lost, why did that crowd of them vie with one another?