萬松老人評唱天童覺和尚頌古從容庵錄 3.94

3.94

The Master said: Seven hundred sixty-year cycles—he has been through many things; therefore 'Cliff-brows crossed with snow.' The ancients took eyebrows and eyes to be cliffs and lightning. Tiantong uses the story of river-eyes and ocean-mouth to make a four-line gāthā, as if seeing the living Zhaozhou pointing to the cypress tree. The brows are like reed-flower shores; the eyes are emerald like autumn water. An ancient line says: 'Wild waters are clearer than a monk's emerald eyes; distant mountains are darker than a buddha's head-blue.' Ocean-mouth stirs waves; boat-tongue rides the current. Waves can capsize a boat; a boat can ride waves. A single word can prosper a state; a single word can ruin a state. Therefore, following this: 'A hand that quells chaos; a tally of great peace.' Zhou once said, 'Sometimes I take a stalk of grass and use it as the sixteen-foot golden body; sometimes I take the sixteen-foot golden body and use it as a stalk of grass.' This talk originally resolved doubts for people, yet now how many people are doubted by it? How could Zhaozhou have wanted to stir up the groves? When people see Zhaozhou answering words, he responds right to the sound, as if employing no effort. Only Tiantong knows: 'Eighty years of pilgrimage; if a three-year-old child surpasses me, I will learn from him.' This is made in leisure and used in haste. If one is not a person of toil and hardship, one does not know: Wolun had skill, able to cut off the hundred thoughts; facing objects the mind does not arise, bodhi grows day by day. The Sixth Patriarch said: Huineng has no skill, does not cut off the hundred thoughts; facing objects the mind arises repeatedly, how can bodhi grow? Viewed in this way, what about the business of blocking ravines and filling gullies? Now cast into West Lake; to whom do you entrust this boatload of pure wind?