萬松老人評唱天童覺和尚頌古從容庵錄 4.51

4.51

The Master said: "Qianfeng treated a dead horse, but the treatment did not work; this monk was already a person who had lost his body and life. Yunmen had obtained the soul-returning incense, which can bring the already dead back to life. The Shiyi zhuan says: 'In the first year of the Yanhe era of the Han, the Western barbarian kingdom of the Yuezhi sent an envoy to offer four ounces of incense, as large as sparrow eggs and the colour of mulberries. In the first year of the Shiyuan era, a great pestilence struck the capital, and more than half the people died. The emperor took the incense and burned it; those who had been dead for less than three days all revived, and the fragrance did not cease for three months.' The incense comes from Mount Ren'niao on Jukuzhou; the tree resembles a sweetgum, and its fragrance is smelled for several li. It is called the soul-returning tree. Cutting the root and boiling the sap in a jade cauldron yields a black, sticky resin. Its first name is 'startling the vital spirit'; its second is 'returning to life'; its third is 'quaking sandalwood'; and its fourth is 'averting death.' Tiantong's informal sermon said: 'Fully obtaining the soul-returning incense, yet at the same time coming to strike the poison-smeared drum.' Yunmen's entanglement—Tiantong called it the soul-returning incense; throughout the quarters it turned into the poison-smeared drum, directly rendering one unable to turn around or breathe, cutting off the throat and blocking the nostrils, and also bringing a drench of sweat over the whole body. Master Baozhi said: 'Suddenly awakening to original nature as fundamentally empty / is just like a fever breaking into sweat.' Even so, how many hairs do Wansong's eyebrows have?"