萬松老人評唱天童覺和尚頌古從容庵錄 4.73

4.73

The Master said: Chan Master Shengnian of Baoying in Ruzhou was a native of Caizhou surnamed Di. He studied under Fengxue. Fengxue instructed the assembly, saying: 'In the past, the Bhagavān looked at Kāśyapa with his blue-lotus eyes. Right at such a time, tell me, what did he say?' Shoushan immediately went down. The attendant entered the master's room to ask for instruction, saying, 'Why did Nian Fahua not answer the Venerable?' Fengxue said, 'Nian Fahua understands.' The next day, Shan and Head Gardener Zhen (Zhen of Guanghui in Ruzhou) went up together to stand in attendance. Fengxue said, 'What is the Bhagavān's speaking without speaking?' Zhen said, 'The turtle-dove calls from the treetop; its mind is in the hemp field.' Fengxue said, 'Why do you make so much foolish merit? Why not investigate the words and phrases?' He then asked Shan, 'What about you?' Shan said, 'Moving with deportment, one displays the ancient path, not falling into the working of silence.' Fengxue said to Zhen, 'Why don't you look at the words uttered by Nian Fahua?' Later, when Shan came into the world [as an abbot], he took the high seat and said, 'If you want intimacy, do not bring questions. The question is in the place of the answer; the answer is in the place of the question. If you bring a question, this old monk is under your feet. If you deliberate, there is no connection.' One day he held up a bamboo stick and said, 'If you call it a bamboo stick, you clash; if you do not call it a bamboo stick, you turn your back. What, all of you, do you call it?' Master Sheng of Yexian snatched it, snapped it into two pieces, threw them down the steps, and said, 'What is it?' Shan said, 'Blind one!' Xian then bowed. The various quarters call this the 'barrier of clashing and turning one's back.' A common proverb says: 'Topsy-turvy upside-down: the bride rides the donkey, the mother-in-law leads it.' Foguo's verse says: 'Shoushan has words transmitted through past and present; / Of these words, do not say they are topsy-turvy upside-down. / The bride drunkenly goes off riding the donkey; / People of the time laugh themselves to death at the mother-in-law leading it.' It is not delightful like Tiantong's verse. The verse says: