Just the Tip?

Master Daliao asked Mazu, "What is the precise meaning of the coming from the West?" Mazu knocked him down with a foot to the chest; he was greatly enlightened. Getting up he clapped and laughed out loud, saying, "Marvelous, marvelous! The source of a hundred thousand absorptions and countless subtle meanings is perceived all at once on a single hair tip!"

Instructing the assembly, the Master (Yunmen) said: "The twenty-eight Indian and six Chinese founders as well as the whole empire's teachers are all on the tip of this staff."

When Master Yunmen once saw a monk reading a scripture he said, "To read scriptures, one must be equipped with the scripture-reading eye. The lantern, the pillar, and the entire Buddhist canon lack nothing." Holding up his staff, he continued, "The entire Buddhist canon is right on the tip of this staff. Come on, where do you see a single dot? Yet [the canon] is wide open: Thus I have heard: The lands in all ten directions, encompassing the worlds as numerous as grains of sands…"

A monk asked (Master Zhimen Zuo), "What is beyond Buddha?" The Master said, "Hanging the sun and moon on the tip of a staff."

Master Tianyi Huai said in verse,
If he accepts this view, he disbands his school;
If he doesn't accept this view, with whom will be debate?
The carrying pole suddenly breaks; both sides fall off.
Heaven and earth appear on the tip of a hair.

Master Baiyun Duan said to an assembly, "How about when I am invited by Dharma Blossom monastery, part from this community to lodge in Pine prefecture, open a teaching hall, then return to this temple - tell me, do I leave 'this seat' or not? If you say I leave, worldly truth prevails; if you say I haven't left, how do you see this phenomenon of not leaving? Is it not the realms of infinite lands, one's own and others, not being separate on a hair tip, all times not being apart from the immediate moment? Or is it not simultaneously pervading all spontaneously, without thought? If so, this is waving a stick to hit the moon."

Having entered the Dharma Hall, Master Yunmen said: "The old men definitely had some word-creepers that could be of help. For instance, [my teacher] Xuefeng said, 'The whole world is nothing but you.' Master Jiashan said, 'Get hold of me on the tips of the hundred grasses, and recognize the emperor in the bustling marketplace.' Master Luopu said, 'The moment a single grain of dust arises, the whole world is contained in it. On [the tip of] a single lion's hair the whole body of the lion appears."

Sometimes an unfamiliar metaphor can be like a mile high wall for me, personally. Even when the meaning seems totally obvious in retrospect, when I first hear them, they might as well be speaking Chinese. Thankfully, there is a forum full of bright, metaphorically-literate people to turn to whenever I get stuck.

What's all this about things 'appearing on the tips of hairs, grasses, and staffs'? Can anyone tip me off?

Submitted February 11, 2023 at 08:03PM by Surska0 https://ift.tt/mJDik0l