萬松老人評唱天童覺和尚頌古從容庵錄 3.130

3.130

The Master said: In the 'Explaining Tokens' chapter of Liezi, a neighbor of Yangzi lost a sheep. Having gathered his party, he also asked Yangzi's servant boy to pursue it. Yangzi said, 'For one sheep, why do so many pursue it?' The neighbor said, 'There are many branching paths.' When he returned, [Yangzi] asked, 'Did you catch the sheep?' He said, 'I lost it.' He asked, 'Why did you lose it?' He said, 'Among the branching paths there were yet more branching paths.' Mozi was a man of the Way in the time of King Hui of Liang; when traveling out, he saw raw white silk being dyed to follow other colors, and lamenting it, said, 'Human beings are serenely identical to the sacred essence; living amid vile customs, they are dyed and become burdened.' 'Diverging paths and dyed silk are too wearisome'—wearisome (laolao) is [also written] noisy and fussy (laolao). Or writing it as 'wearisome' is also fine. As for 'joining leaves and linking flowers,' the First Patriarch Bodhidharma's verse says: 'I originally came to this land / To preach the Dharma and rescue deluded beings; / One flower opens five leaves, / The fruit ripens of itself.' One flower with five leaves is just diverging paths and dyed silk. If in the great country of Tang there are no Chan masters, then Bodhidharma too has no part in sticking his head out. The Zongjing lu says: 'The south-pointing chariot was originally to show those who are lost; the mirror that reflects the gall bladder was to inspect deviant people.' The Gujin zhu says: 'The Yellow Emperor fought with Chiyou at Zhuolu. Chiyou made a great fog so that all four quarters were obscured. The Emperor stood in his chariot and pointed south to direct them; the soldiers captured Chiyou and beheaded him. It was then called the south-pointing chariot.' 'Firing and molding' (zhentao): The Chenliu fengsu ji says: 'Shun fired pottery by the river bank; later his descendants took it as their clan name. Now the surname is Zhen, pronounced zhen.' This is the mysterious furnace molding all phenomena, the ocean of wisdom gathering all the myriad streams. 'Clearing away the cumbersome, trimming away the downy feathers': removing the deviant branches of diverging paths, cutting off the collateral sprigs of joined leaves. The Dipper serves as the balance star to turn and equalize the four seasons. The ornate mirror is the mirror of literary brilliance. Scales are that by which lightness and weight are determined; a mirror can distinguish the beautiful from the ugly. As for 'jade ruler,' the Shiyi ji says: 'When Yu traveled to the Dragon Gate, eight spirits reached for a jade tablet to bestow upon him, one foot and two inches in length, capable of measuring heaven and earth.' As for 'golden knife,' in antiquity there were gold-inlaid knife-coins and golden-blade writings. This praises Huangbo ranking the various quarters with scales and ruler in hand, furthermore possessing ears sharp enough to hear ants fighting, and eyes clear enough to examine the autumn down; preventing the small and stopping the budding, he sits through the spring wind, not letting it rise high. Venerable Anyi of Dasheng's poem on bamboo shoots says: 'Better to apply the axe right at the root, / To avoid letting branches sprout beyond the joints.'