Xutang's Empty Hall Collection: Buddha has three bodies

Xutang: Published as "Every End Exposed" with Hakuin's "commentary" that the translator goes out of his way to point out was bogus. More Zen reading here: /r/zen/wiki/getstarted

21

Cut the Head Off

A monk asked Master Dongshan, "Which of the three bodies of Buddha' (sanshin] does the preaching!" Dongshan said, "With me this is always an acute problem."

Afterwards the monk asked Master Caoshan, "What did Dongshan mean when he said, 'With me this is always an acute problem?" Caoshan said, "If you want the head, cut it off and take it."

The monk then asked Master Xuefeng. Xuefeng pressed his stick against the monk's mouth and said. "I had been to see Dongshan too". The monk was speechless

MASTER Xutang:

I cannot breathe.

.

Welcome link; ewk comment: ^who? First of all, why did a monk go to see anybody else after he talked to Dongshan? Dongshan, first among Soto Zen Masters? After that, the monk asked Caoshan, Dongshan's heir, who put Dongshan in his place. Why see anybody else after that? But no, the monk went to see Xuefeng:

This is Xuefeng:

One day a monk asked Master Xuefeng, “When you visited your masters, what was it that you attained that put an end to your search?”

Xuefeng said, “I went with empty hands and I returned with empty hands.”

.

One day a monk pleaded, “Master, please express what I cannot express myself.”

The Master Xuefeng said, “For the sake of the teaching, I have to save you!” Then he lifted his whisk and shook it before the monk.

.

Another time the two masters took a walk in the woods and saw a band of monkeys. Master Xuefeng said, “Each of these monkeys carries an ancient mirror.”

Master Sansheng said, “The vast eon has no name. How come you bring out ancient mirrors?”

Xuefeng said, “Now it has a scratch.”

Sansheng said, “Hundreds of practitioners can’t understand your talk.”

Xuefeng said, “This old monk is busy with abbot’s affairs.”

Didn't Xuefeng write some poems or something? Anyway.

So, which of buddha's three bodies does the teaching? Where did we land on that?

Submitted March 19, 2021 at 06:14AM by ewk https://ift.tt/2NAjmyG