60Yunmen's Staff Becomes a Dragon
Introduction 垂示
諸佛眾生本來無異，山河自己寧有等差？為什麼却渾成兩邊去也？若能撥轉話頭，坐斷要津，放過即不可；若不放過，盡大地不消一揑。且作麼生是撥轉話頭處？試舉看。
Buddhas and ordinary people were never two different things. Mountains, rivers, your own self: where is the gap? So why has the whole thing split into two sides? If you can flip the question on its head and sit astride the narrow pass, you cannot let a single thing slip by. And if you let nothing slip by, the whole earth wouldn't make one pinch of dust. So how do you flip the question on its head? Watch.
雲門以拄杖示眾云：「拄杖子化為龍，吞却乾坤了也，山河大地甚處得來？」
Yunmen held up his staff before the assembly and said, "This staff has turned into a dragon and swallowed the whole universe. So where do the mountains, the rivers, the great earth come from?"
Verse 頌
拄杖子吞乾坤，
徒說桃花浪奔。
燒尾者不在拏雲攫霧，
曝腮者何必喪膽亡魂。
拈了也，
聞不聞？
直須灑灑落落，
休更紛紛紜紜。
七十二棒且輕恕，
一百五十難放君。
師驀拈拄杖下座，大眾一時走散。
The staff swallows the universe.
No use babbling about peach-blossom floods surging by.
The one whose tail burns off won't bother clawing through cloud and fog;
the one left gasping on the bank, why lose his nerve, why lose his soul?
He has held it up.
Do you hear it or not?
Be clean, be clear, let it all drop.
Quit churning the mud, quit the endless fuss.
Seventy-two blows, those I'll let you off lightly.
A hundred and fifty, those you won't get out of.
Then the master suddenly grabbed his staff and stepped down from the seat. The whole crowd scattered at once.