萬松老人評唱天童覺和尚頌古從容庵錄 3.124

3.124

The Master said: Prajñā is without knowing, yet there is nothing it does not know; hence "purity contains with a surplus." In the first year of the Yongchang reign of Emperor Yuan of Jin, Wang Dun was garrisoned at Wuchang and raised troops to attack the palace. Diao Xie urged the emperor to execute the entire Wang clan. Wang Dao led his kinsmen to the palace terrace to await punishment. As Zhou Yi was about to enter the court, Dao called to him, "Boren, I entrust a hundred lives to you!" Yi did not look back. When he went inside, he argued vigorously for Dao's loyalty and pleaded for his rescue with the utmost urgency. When he came out, Dao was still at the gate and called to him again, but Yi did not answer, merely saying, "This year, kill the rebel slaves and take a gold seal as big as a bushel to tie behind my elbow!" Soon afterward, he submitted another memorial clarifying Dao's innocence. Dao, unaware of this, resented him deeply. When Dun's troops arrived, Dun asked Dao, "May Zhou Yi be spared?" Dao did not answer, so Dun killed Yi. Later, when Dao was checking the Department of the Imperial Secretariat, he saw Yi's memorial saving him and wept, saying, "In the dark of ignorance, I failed this good friend!" In the monasteries there is also the "talisman behind the elbow." The *Continuation of the Spring and Autumn Annals* says: Zhao Jianzi told his sons, "I have hidden a precious talisman behind my elbow on Mount Chang; whoever finds it first shall be rewarded." The sons galloped up the mountain and searched, but found nothing. Only Xiangzi, Wuxu, returned and said, "Wuxu has obtained the talisman! None of the others can share in it." Jianzi asked him to report it, and Wuxu said, "Looking down from Mount Chang upon Dai, it can be taken." Jianzi said, "Wuxu is worthy!" and established him as heir apparent. Yunyan instructed the assembly, saying, "There is a son of a certain family; when questioned, there is nothing he cannot say." Dongshan came forward and said, "How many books are in his house?" Yan said, "Not even a single word." Dongshan said, "How did he get so much knowledge?" Yan said, "Day and night he never sleeps." Dongshan again said, "May I ask about a certain matter?" Yan said, "If it could be said, I would not say it." "Who can share the seal behind the elbow?"—the deeply secret way of self-attainment cannot be shared by others. "In the house, no books are kept"—getting so much knowledge: to be born with knowledge is highest; to learn and know it is next. As for this "donkey peering into a well, well peering at a donkey," does it allow of division and comprehension? Does it allow of learned understanding and dissemination? Jiashan said, "Understanding arising from hearing, painting in the mind—though fine before the eyes, held long it becomes a disease. Green mountains and white clouds have never reached one another. The loom's threads do not hang upon the work at the shuttle's head, yet the patterns run crisscross and the meaning is spontaneously distinct." "On the single road of Jiaxiang, the wise know detachment; auspicious grass without roots is not valued by the worthy." Tiantong at the end fully uses Jiashan's couplet to clarify that this dialogue does not fall into conceptual thought, its patterns being spontaneously complete. Tell me: endowed with what samādhi does one attain such a state? Merely having no nostrils, utterly helpless in every way.