萬松老人評唱天童覺和尚頌古從容庵錄 6.73

6.73

The Master said: Venerable Shitou said: 'If you wish to know the person who does not die in the hermitage, how can you depart from this skin bag right now?' Tiantong, however, says: 'Cast off this skin bag.' Both Dongshan and Tiantong are descendants under Shitou; with such contradiction, how can they be reconciled? Linji also said that upon the lump of red flesh there is a true person of no rank. Tiantong, however, instructs to throw away the lump of red flesh. Tell me: where does the true person of no rank establish life and destiny? Venerable Bori said: 'Before this mountain monk arrived, the noses of the people of Yanjing were crooked; this mountain monk specifically came to pull them straight.' Wansong says: Bori's nostrils have fallen into the hands of the people of Yanjing. A monk asked Xiangyan: 'What is the Way?' Yan said: 'A dragon roaring in a withered tree.' The monk said: 'I do not understand.' Yan said: 'An eye in a dry skull.' Later, a monk asked Shishuang: 'What is the dragon roaring in a withered tree?' Shuang said: 'It still carries joy.' The monk said: 'What is the eye in a dry skull?' Shuang said: 'It still carries consciousness.' There was also a monk who asked Caoshan, and Shan showed him with a gāthā, saying: / 'The withered tree’s dragon roar is truly seeing the Way; / When the skull's consciousness is exhausted, the eye is first clear. / When joy and consciousness are exhausted, news is brought to an end; / How can that person distinguish the clear within the turbid?' / The monk asked again: 'What is the dragon roaring in a withered tree?' Cao said: 'The blood vessels are not cut off.' The monk said: 'What is the eye in a dry skull?' Cao said: 'It is not completely dry.' The *Zuting shiyuan* has it as 'completely dry.' According to Tiantong's verse and its preface, the lump of red flesh alone reveals the true and constant, and the skull's eye drains dry the leaking consciousness; 'completely dry' is not bad either. A worldly proverb says: 'An old physician, a young diviner.' It means that a physician is clear only when old, while a diviner is efficacious when young. Therefore Dongshan acted as an old one who did not see that there was illness. That 'for a young son, looking toward [him], approach is difficult' means that if one intends to be intimate, one is alienated; if one intends to face it, one goes astray. The diseased branch of the cold pine, because of the illness, turns out even more wondrous. That Vimalakīrti was thin without being emaciated was because through illness the Way is diminished day by day. Chan Master Shen of Fengsheng in the Western Capital composed a verse when rising from illness, saying: / 'My energy is cut off, ending all emotional moods; / Raising a thought, there is no path for thought. / To blink my eyes, I do not yet have the strength; / For long years, I do not step out the door.' / Venerable Furong Kai said: 'Merely through this single verse, he naturally inherits this old monk.' This is the waters becoming slender, the floods receding, the clouds breaking off, and the mountain being cold. 'One must eradicate it completely, do not be muddle-headed.' Illness must have its root removed; a physician must need no medicine. 'When turned around completely, without merit, he assumes his position; his solitary loftiness does not share the same platter with you.' Do you understand? A single speck of gold from the Li River cannot be mixed up in the drifting sands.