Yuanwu: You must believe this.

Yuanwu was addressing the monks] "It hasn't been easy, but you've made your way to this great field. What a pity if you were now to die and not be able to attain life. It's a great error to rely on words. Without knowing where you'll fall, just let go of the edge of the cliff. Let yourself do it. After you wake up you won't be deceived again. You must believe this."

Thereafter Dahui was selected to be an attendant in the wood hall. In this post, each day he accompanied the patrons of the temple when they waited to see and then entered the abbot's quarters for interviews. Yuanwu always said to them, "It's like words without words. Like a creeper held up by a tree."

Once when Yuanwu asked Dahui a question, Dahui started to answer when Yuanwu cut him off by saying, "No! No!"

After six months had passed, Dahui asked Yuanwu, "I've heard that previously you questioned Wuzu about this phrase, but I don't know what he answered." Yuanwu laughed by did not reply.

So Dahui said, "At that time you posed this question to everyone. Why not say it again now?"

Yuanwu said, "I said to Wuzu, 'What is the meaning of the phrase, "It is words without words, a creeper held up by a tree"?' Wuzu answered me by saying, "You cannot trace it. It can't be drawn." I then asked him, "When the tree has fallen down and the creeper has withered, what then?" Wuzu said, "See what comes next."

At these words Dahui was enlightened. He said, "I understand." Yuanwu then posed several probing questions at the student, and Dahui replied to each one without hesitation.

Finally, Yuanwu said, "At last you know that I didn't deceive you."

Submitted July 06, 2017 at 10:43PM by ZenMovie http://ift.tt/2tleOiE