萬松老人評唱天童覺和尚頌古從容庵錄 2.79

2.79

The Master said: Layman Wujin raised [the case of] Linji taking leave of Guishan while Yangshan attended at his side. Guishan said, 'What will this man's Dharma Way be like in the future?' Yangshan said, 'In the future his Dharma Way will flourish greatly in Wu and Yue, but meeting Feng [Wind] it will stop.' Guishan also asked, 'Who will inherit from him?' Yangshan said, 'The era is far in the future, it cannot yet be told.' Guishan insisted on asking, saying, 'I too wish to know.' Yangshan said, 'Does not the sūtra say: "Offering this profound mind to the dust-mote realms—this then is called repaying the Buddha's kindness"?' The layman said, 'By this I know that Fengxue was the later rebirth of Yangshan.'
When Fengxue first trained under Xuefeng for five years, one day he asked for instruction concerning how, under Linji's assembly, the senior monks of the two halls raised their heads, looked at each other, and each gave a shout; a monk brought it up to Linji, asking, 'I wonder, did they possess the eye of guest and host?' Linji said, 'Although it was so, host and guest were clearly distinct.' Xuefeng recounted that he, Yantou, and Qinshan had been on their way [to Linji], but found Linji had already passed away before they could call on him, and so said, 'If you wish to understand, you must ask his descendants.' Fengxue related this to Nanyuan Yong, and Nanyuan said, 'Xuefeng is an ancient buddha.'
The Master later resided at Guanghui Chan Monastery on Mount Fengxue in Ruzhou. During the disorders of the Five Dynasties, the Governor of Yingzhou invited the Master to spend the summer inside the government office. One day the Governor requested him to ascend the seat. He instructed the assembly, saying: 'The ancestral teacher's mind-seal is shaped like the dynamic of an iron ox. Unlike the stone man and wooden horse singing subtly and presenting subtly, it is directly like an iron ox—you have no place to approach it. As soon as you go, it hooks you back; as soon as you stay, it smashes you into a hundred pieces. Just when neither going nor staying, is sealing it right, or is not sealing it right?' One may say there was bait on the hook.
Elder Lubi, also a descendant of Linji, immediately turned his phrase around and posed a question that was undeniably extraordinary, saying, 'I have the dynamic of an iron ox; I ask the Master not to apply the seal.' But what could be done? Fengxue carried out the command from his authority, and immediately said: 'Accustomed to angling for whales, clearing the vast ocean, / I sigh instead at the frog's gait, wading through the mud and sand.' Whales are ocean-straddling great fish; in Zhuangzi, the Duke of Ren used fifty bullocks as bait and once caught such a fish. As for 'the frog's gait, wading through the mud and sand,' there is a story: In the time of Emperor Wu of Han, there was Bao Lichang, who saw a herd of wild horses beside the Wowa River; among them an extraordinary one came to drink water. So he made a clay mannequin, holding a bridle and hobble beside [the water], until [the horse] became accustomed to it, then substituted a man for it and captured the horse. Wishing to make his horse seem miraculous, he said it came out of the water, and so it was rumored to be the seed of a dragon. Fengxue [is said to have] meant that the horse came out from clear water but instead wallowed in the mud and sand. This explanation is circuitous. In Fengxue's *Zhonghouji*, it clearly has 'frog's gait' (wabu). Have you not seen? After Xuedou versified the dialogue of the rhinoceros fan, he further said, 'If you want the pure breeze to blow again and horns to grow anew, I ask the Zen guests to provide a turning phrase,' and then said, 'Since the fan is already broken, give me back my rhinoceros child!' Then a monk came forth and said, 'Let the great assembly go to the hall.' Xuedou shouted and said, 'Casting the hook to angle for leviathans and whales, I've caught a frog!' Taking these two lines against Fengxue's upper and lower lines, the character 'frog' (wa) is without doubt.
Lubi hesitated in thought. Presenting a dynamic in asking the question, he wanted to meet Fengxue head-on, but was suddenly punctured; wanting to seek out another long pole, before he could display his spear technique, a bundle of firewood knocked him down. This was the fault of not understanding how to seize the dynamic and execute the command, exchanging guest and host.
The Governor, having long studied under Fengxue, was not without insight, saying, 'The Buddha Dharma and the king's law are identical.' Fengxue, having secured Annam, was now worried about the northern border, and so asked the Governor, 'What did you see?' Here would have been a fine chance to redress the grievance for Lubi, but [the Governor] only said, 'When one ought to decide and does not, it brings chaos instead.' It was quite well spoken. Because he was a secular official, Fengxue swallowed his indignation and immediately descended the seat. The two venerable masters—one a dragon, one a snake—played hard and played soft, drumming up the Linji lineage style. Furthermore, Tiantong provides a verse in judgment, saying: