“POINTER
The sword that kills people, the sword that brings people to life: this is the standard way of high antiquity and the essential pivot for today as well. If you discuss killing, you don’t harm a single hair; if you discuss giving life, you lose your body and life. Therefore it is said, “The thousand sages have not transmitted the single transcendental path; students toil over appearances like monkeys grasping at reflections.” Tell me, since it is not transmitted, why then so many complicated public cases? Let those with eyes try to explain. CASE
A monk asked Tung Shan, “What is Buddha?”1 Tung Shan said, “Three pounds of hemp.”2 NOTES
1. Iron brambles; no patchrobed monk on earth can leap clear. 2. Clearly. Worn out straw sandals. He points to a pagoda tree to scold a willow tree.
COMMENTARY
So many people misunderstand this public case. It really is hard to chew on, since there’s no place for you to sink your teeth into. What is the reason? Because it’s bland and flavorless.
The Ancients had quite a few answers to the question “What is Buddha?” One said, “The one in the shrine.” “One said, “The one in the shrine.” One said, “The thirty-two auspicious marks.” One said, “A bamboo whip on a mountain covered with a forest grown from a staff.” And so on, to Tung Shan, who said, “Three pounds of hemp.” He couldn’t be stopped from cutting off the tongues of the Ancients.
Many people base their understanding on the words and say that Tung Shan was in the storehouse at the time weighing out hemp when the monk questioned him, and therefore he answered in this way.
Some say that when Tung Shan is asked about the east he answers about the west. Some say that since you are Buddha and yet you still go to ask about Buddha, Tung Shan answers this in a roundabout way. And there’s yet another type of dead men who say that the three pounds of hemp is itself Buddha.
But these interpretations are irrelevant. If you seek from Tung Shan’s words this way, you can search until Maitreya Buddha is born down here and still never see it even in a dream.
What’s the reason? Words and speech are just vessels to convey the Path. Far from realizing the intent “of the Ancients, people just search in their words; what grasp can they get on it? Haven’t you seen how an Ancient said, “Originally the Path is wordless; with words we illustrate the Path. Once you see the Path, the words are immediately forgotten.”
To get to this point, you must first go back to your own original state. Just this three pounds of hemp is like the single track of the great road to the Capital; as you raise your feet and put them down, there’s nothing that is not this. This story is the same as Yun Men’s saying “Cake”a but it’s unavoidably difficult to understand. My late teacher Wu Tsu made a verse about it:
The cheap-selling board-carrying fellow Weighs it out, three pounds of hemp. With a hundred thousand years of unsold goods, He has no place to put it all.
You must clean it all up; when your defiling feelings, conceptual thinking, and comparative judgements of gain and loss and right and wrong are all cleared away at once, then you will spontaneously understand.”
“VERSE
The Golden Ravenb hurries; ** In the left eye, half a pound. The swift sparrowhawk can’t overtake it. Lay the body down in flames of fire.*
The Jade Rabbitc is swift. ** In the right eye, eight ounces. He makes his nest in the palace of Heng O, the Moon Lady.*
Has there ever been carelessness in a good response? ** As the bell when struck, as the valley embracing the echo.*
To see Tung Shan as laying out facts in accordance with the situation ** Mistakenly sticking by the zero point of the scale; it’s just Your Reverence who sees things this way.*
Is like a lame tortoise and a blind turtle entering an empty valley. ** Take what’s coming to you and get out. In the same pit, there’s no different dirt. Who killed your sparrowhawk?*
Flowering groves, multicolored forests; ** A double case; he handles all crimes with the same indictment. As before, they’re the same.*
Bamboo of the South, wood of the North. ** A quadruple case. He puts a head on top of his head.*
So I think of Ch’ang Ch’ing and Officer Lu: ** A leper drags his companions along with him. I am this way, and Hsueh Tou is “this way too.*
He knew how to say he should laugh, not cry. ** Ha ha. By day and by night he adds to the suffering.*
Ha! ** Bah! What is this? I strike!*
COMMENTARY
Hsueh Tou can see all the way through, so he immediately says, “The Golden Raven hurries; the Jade Rabbit is swift.” This is of the same kind as Tung Shan’s reply “Three pounds of hemp.” The sun rises, the moon sets; every day it’s like this. People often make up intellectual interpretations and just say, “The Golden Raven is the left eye and the Jade Rabbit is the right eye.” As soon as they’re questioned, they put a glare in their eyes and say, “They’re here!” What connection is there? If you understand in this way, the whole school of Bodhidharma”“would be wiped off the face of the earth. That is why it is said,
Letting down the hook in the four seas Just to fish out terrible dragons; The mysterious device outside conventions Is for seeking out those who know the self.
Hsueh Tou is a man who has left the heaps and elements;d how could he make up this sort of interpretation? Hsueh Tou easily goes to where the barriers are broken and the hinges are smashed to reveal a little something to let you see; there he adds a footnote, saying, “Has there ever been carelessness
in a good response?” Tung Shan does not reply lightly to this monk; he is like a bell when struck, like a valley embracing an echo. Great or small, he responds accordingly, never daring to make a careless impression. At once Hsueh Tou has brought out his guts and presented them to all of you. Hsueh Tou had a verse on being tranquil but responding well:
“Presented face to face, it’s not a matter of multiplicity; Dragons and snakes are easily distinguished, but a patchrobed monk is hard to deceive. The golden hammer’s shadow moves, the jewel sword’s light is cold; They strike directly; hurry up and take a look!
When Tung Shan first saw Yun Men, Yun Men asked him, “Where have you just come from?” Tung Shan said, “From Cha Tu.” Yun Men said, “Where did you spend the summer retreat?” Tung Shan said, “In Hunan, at Pao Tz’u.” Yun Men asked, “When did you leave there?” Tung Shan said, “August twenty-fifth.” Yun Men said, “I should let you have three score blows of the staff; go meditate in the hall.”
That evening Tung Shan entered Yun Men’s room; drawing near, he asked, “Where was my fault?” Yun Men said, “You rice bag! From Kiangsi to Hunan, and still you go on this way.” At these words Tung Shan was vastly and greatly awakened. After a while he
said, “Another day I’ll go to a place where there are no “human hearths and build myself a hut; I won’t store even a single grain of rice or plant any vegetables. There I’ll receive and wait upon the great sages
coming and going from the ten directions; I’ll pull out all the nails and pegs for them, I’ll pull off their greasy caps and strip them of their stinking shirts. I’ll make them all clean and free, so they can be unconcerned people.” Yun Men said, “Your body is the size of a coconut, but you can open such a big mouth.”
Tung Shan then took his leave and departed. His enlightenment at the time was a direct complete breakthrough; how could it have anything in common with small petty views? Later when he appeared in the world to respond to people’s various potentialities, the words, “Three pounds of hemp” were understood everywhere merely as a reply to the question about Buddha; they just make their
reasoning in terms of Buddha. Hsueh Tou says that to understand Tung Shan’s reply as expressing facts in accordance with the situation is like a lame tortoise or a blind turtle going into an empty valley; when will they ever find a way “out?
“Flowering groves, multicolored forests.” When a monk asked Master Hsien of Fu Teh,e “What is the mind of the Buddhas of antiquity?” The master replied, “Flowering groves, multicolored forests.
” The monk also asked Ming Chiao, “What is the inner meaning of ‘three pounds of hemp’?” Ming Chiao said, “Bamboo of the South, wood of the North.” The monk came back and recounted this to Tung Shan, who said, “I won’t explain this just for you, but I will explain it to the whole community.” Later he went into the hall and said, “Words do not express facts, speech does not accord with the situation. Those who accept words are lost, and those who linger over phrases are deluded.”
To smash people’s intellectual views, Hsueh Tou purposely draws these together on a single thread to produce his verse. Yet people of later times still give rise to even more intellectual views and say, “‘Three pounds of hemp’ is the robe of mourning; bamboo is the staff of mourning: that’s why he said, ‘Bamboo of the South, wood of the North.’ ‘Flowering groves,
multicolored forests’ is the flowers and plants painted on the coffin.” Do these people realize their “disgrace? How far are they from realizing that “bamboo of the South, wood of the North” and “three pounds of hemp” are just like “daddy” and “poppa.”
When the Ancients answered with a turn of words, their intention was definitely not like these (interpretations). It’s just like Hsueh Tou’s saying, “The Golden Raven hurries; the Jade Rabbit is swift”—it’s just as broad. It’s just that real gold and fool’s gold are hard to tell apart; similar written characters are not the same.
Hsueh Tou has the kind heart of an old woman; he wants to break up your feelings of doubt, so he brings in more dead men. “So I think of Ch’ang Ch’ing and Officer Lu; he knew how to say he should laugh, not cry.” To discuss the verse itself, the first three lines by themselves have already completed the verse. But I ask you, since the whole universe is just this three pounds of hemp, why does Hsueh Tou still have so many complications? It’s just that his compassion is excessive, therefore he is like this.
When Officer Lu Hsuan was Inspector of “Hsuan Chou, he studied with Nan Ch’uan. When Nan Ch’uan passed on, Lu heard the (sound of) mourning so he entered the temple for the funeral. He laughed aloud a great laugh. The temple director said to him,
“The late master and you were teacher and disciple; why aren’t you crying?” Officer Lu said, “If you can say something, I’ll cry.” The temple director was speechless. Lu gave a loud lament; “Alas! Alas! Our late master is long gone.” Later Ch’ang Ch’ing heard of this and said, “The officer should have laughed, not cried.”
Hsueh Tou borrows the essence of this meaning to say that if you make up these kinds of intellectual interpretations, this calls for laughter, not crying. This is so, but at the very end there’s a single word which is unavoidably easy to misunderstand, when he goes on to say “Ha!” Has Hsueh Tou washed himself clean?”
Excerpt From The Blue Cliff Record J. C. Cleary This material may be protected by copyright.
Submitted February 19, 2018 at 09:13PM by fran2d2 http://ift.tt/2BA678N
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