Master Huitang called on Yue Gonghui at Baofeng. Gonghui’s clear understanding of the profound doctrines of the Heroic March Scripture was foremost in his time. Each phrase, each word that Huitang heard was like a precious jewel to him, and he was overcome with joy.
Among the monks in Huitang’s community there were some who privately criticized their leader. When Huitang heard of it, he said, "I sound out his strengths and work on my shortcomings—what is there for me to be ashamed about?”
Ying Shaowu said “Master Huitang’s study of the Way is a model for Chan monks. Still he considers the inherent superiority of honorable virtue to be strength, and considers what he has not yet seen or heard to be a shame, causing those in the monasteries who inflate themselves and belittle others to have a standard of which to be mindful. This is of some help indeed.”
Lingyuan’s Remnants
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This text has fascinated me from the moment I started to read it. I can hear Zen Masters groaning about missing the fundamental. Yuanwu is probably the earliest I've heard talking about "models", and this Zhuan fellow, who is supposed to be Foyan's student, is a bit of a mystery. I have only heard of him being mentioned elsewhere in the Seonmun yeomsong jip.
Scriptures? "Inherent superiority of honorable virtue"? Strange indeed.
Here's TotETT 79:
Master Lingyuan said to an assembly,
The Buddhas of all times do not know existence; a debt is not repaid twice. Cats and cows know existence; effort's expended wastefully. When you clarify the great function and awaken the great potential, your trail is inconceivable; go back unknown to anyone. Bursting open the blue sky, a thousand feet of pine; cutting through the red dust, a valley stream of water.
So here, he is, rather, not advertising effort, or holiness, or wild action, but going beyond. Maybe in the Chanlin, he is more focused on Huitang's reaction? But what do standards and rules have to do with "bursting open the blue sky...cutting through the red dust"?
In TotETT 401, Huitang says:
Where there is impediment is not a wall; where there is free passage is not empty space. If you can understand this way, mind and matter are fundamentally one. The whisk is matter - what is mind? As soon as a spiritually sharp fellow hears it brought up, seeing horns on the other side of a fence he already knows it's an ox. If you hesitate any more thinking, white clouds extend for a thousand miles, ten thousand miles.
We can see some of this in his reaction, but not necessarily in his reading of scripture (or not), and the lack of clarity one would assume us inherent in setting up rules before the fundamental, an issue that nearly every Chan Master brings up,at some point.
Anyone else thinking about these things? This isn't the only location I've found conundrums such as these.
Submitted April 23, 2021 at 01:13AM by turiya-harem https://ift.tt/3gwo0tF
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