佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄 6.49

6.49

Yunmen taught people by winding paths; Xuedou taught people by taking shortcuts. Therefore he pushed aside "transforming into a dragon"; there is no need to speak like that. It is just: "The staff swallows heaven and earth." Xuedou's general intention was to keep people from emotional conceptualization, so he further said: "In vain one speaks of peach blossoms surging on the waves." There is no need for transforming into a dragon at all. At Yu Gate there are three tiers of waves. Every year in the third month, when the peach blossom waves rise, fish that can swim against the current and leap over the waves transform into dragons. Xuedou says that even if one transforms into a dragon, that too is spoke in vain. "Those whose tails are scorched do not grasp clouds and seize mists." When a fish passes through Yu Gate, celestial fire naturally scorches its tail, and it departs grasping clouds and seizing mists. Xuedou's meaning is that even if it transforms into a dragon, it still does not consist in grasping clouds and seizing mists. "Why should those whose gills are exposed lose heart and soul?" The Preface to Qingliang's Commentary says: "Bodhisattvas of accumulated practice still expose their gills at the Dragon Gate." The general meaning explains that the realm of the Avataṃsaka is not something attained by little virtue or little wisdom. It is like fish passing through the Dragon Gate: those that fail to penetrate bump their foreheads and turn back, stranded on sandbanks in dead water, exposing their gills. Xuedou's meaning is: once they bump their foreheads and turn back, they must lose heart and soul. "It has been brought up! Did you hear? Did you hear?" He adds an explanatory note again, sweeping away everything for you all at once. You must all be completely clear and unattached; do not go on being confused and turbulent! If you continue being confused and turbulent, you lose the staff. "Seventy-two blows are lightly pardoned." Xuedou forgives the heavy and applies the light for your sakes. The ancients said, "Seventy-two blows double to become a hundred and fifty." Nowadays people misunderstand and just calculate the numbers, [thinking] it ought to be seventy-five blows. Why only seventy-two blows? They do not know at all that the ancients' meaning lay outside words. Therefore it is said: "This matter does not reside in verbal phrases." This prevents later people from speculating and forcing interpretations. That is why Xuedou quoted it. Even if you are truly clear and unattached, you rightly deserve seventy-two blows—and that is still light pardon! Even if you are completely unlike this, a hundred and fifty blows are hard to let you off. He finished his verse eulogy all at once, and then again picked up his staff, repeatedly aiding them. Although it was like this, there was not a single person who had blood under their skin.