No one there for Deshan

Source 1: Letters from Master Ying-an from Chan Instructions (Cleary)

To missionary Da

Before Deshan had met someone, he stuffed his belly full of complications, which flowed in his eighty-four thousand pores and turned into sprites, each emanating countless psychic powers.  Then when he met Longtan [see Source 2 below] it was all useless.  After that he knew he’d been wrong, and said, “From this day on I won’t doubt what the old masters all over the land say.”  Truly, this matter has never been in intellectual knowledge or much learning.  And it’s not in clear calm.  And it’s not in perpetual sitting without lying down.  And it’s not in silent alertness.  If you are someone there, you distinguish the tune as soon as the strings vibrate, know it’s autumn when a leaf falls.  But if you are not yet able to investigate to the end, you should be like Deshan meeting Longtan; only then can you enter the forge and be worked on with the tongs and hammer.

Source 2: Background story in Yuanwu's Commentary of BCR Case 4 (Cleary)

As soon as Te Shan crossed the threshold he said, "Long have I heard of Lung T'an ('Dragon Pond'), but now that I've arrived here, there's no pond to see and no dragon appears." Master Lung T'an came out from behind a screen and said, "You have really arrived at Lung T'an." Te Shan bowed and withdrew. During the night Te Shan entered Lung T'an's room and stood in attendance till late at night. Lung T'an said, "Why don't you go?" Te Shan bade farewell, lifted up the curtain, and went out; he saw that it was dark outside, so he turned around and said, "It's dark outside." Lung T'an lit a paper lantern and handed it to Te Shan;

as soon as Te Shan took it, Lung T'an blew it out.

Te Shan was vastly and greatly enlightened.

(...)

Then Te Shan took all his commentaries in front of the teaching hall and raised a torch over them, declaring, "Even to plumb all abstruse locutions is like a single hair in the great void; to exhaust the essential workings of the world is like a single drop of water cast into a vast valley."

Then he burned the commentaries.

Source 3: Excerpt from BCR Case 4 (Cleary)

When Te Shan arrived at Kuei Shan, he carried his bundle with him into the teaching hall where he crossed from east to west and from west to east. He looked around and said, "There's nothing, no one." Then he went out.

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Knock knock -

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Submitted August 31, 2020 at 07:45AM by Coinionaire https://ift.tt/31MwLYR