Weekly Measuring Tap: Case 9

This is the 9th case from Yuanwu’s Measuring Tap,

A monk asked Xuefeng, “How is it when ‘the ancient valley stream is cold from the source’?”

Xuefeng said, “When you look straight into it, you don’t see the bottom.”

The monk said, “How about one who drinks from it?”

Xuefeng said, “It doesn’t go in through the mouth.”

The monk cited this to Zhaozhou.

Zhaozhou said, “It can’t go in through the nostrils.”

The monk then asked Zhaozhou, “How is it when ‘the ancient valley stream is cold from the source’?”

Zhaozhou said, “Painful.”

The monk said, “What about one who drinks of it?”

Zhaozhou said, “He dies.”

Xuefeng heard this cited and said, “Zhaozhou is an ancient Buddha. I won’t answer questions anymore.”

Xuedou brought this up and said, “Everyone in the community says Xuefeng didn’t get out of this monk’s question, and that’s why Zhaozhou didn’t agree. Such a literal understanding is very unfair to the man of old. I am otherwise. Cutting nails and shearing iron is characteristic of a genuine master of the school. Taking to the low and leveling the high can hardly be considered adept.”

Xuefeng answers in that way because "[the monk's] question was saying his present state was like the cold spring of an ancient valley stream." Zhaozhou said that it is painful. Then he said that if your present state is like a cold spring and you drink from it, you die.

Yuanwu brings up this saying in his commentary, "The question is in the answer, the answer is in the question." If your present state is like a cold spring, that is up to you. It is not Zhaozhou's fault that your experience is painful. He just tells you where it comes down as soon as it's brought up.

If it doesn't go in through the mouth, the nose or the ears, how is anybody drinking from it?

Submitted May 23, 2023 at 07:14AM by astroemi https://ift.tt/0caNJO3