佛果圜悟禪師碧巖錄 10.20

10.20

"The whole elephant and the whole ox do not differ from a cataract in the eye." The blind men groping the elephant, each stating a different theory, comes from the Nirvāṇa Sūtra. A monk asked Yangshan, "When the Venerable sees someone asking about Chan or the Way, you immediately draw a circle and write the character 'ox' inside it; what is the meaning?" Yangshan said, "This too is an idle matter. If you suddenly understand, it does not come from outside; if you suddenly do not understand, you definitely do not recognise it. Let me ask you: among the old seniors of all directions, what on your body do they point out as your Buddha-nature? Is it that which speaks, or is it that which is silent? Or is it that which neither speaks nor is silent? Or is it all of these, or none of them? If you take that which speaks to be it, it is like a blind man touching the elephant's tail. If you take that which is silent to be it, it is like a blind man touching the elephant's ear. If you take that which neither speaks nor is silent to be it, it is like a blind man touching the elephant's trunk. If you say every single thing is it, it is like a blind man touching the elephant's four legs. If you say none of them is it, you abandon the original elephant and fall into the view of emptiness. What such blind men see is merely discriminating names and forms on the elephant. If you want to be well off, under no circumstances grope the elephant! Do not say seeing and awareness are it, nor say they are not." The ancestral master said: "Bodhi originally has no tree; / the bright mirror also has no stand. / Originally there is not a single thing; / how could it be soiled by dust?" He also said: "The Way originally has no shape or form; / wisdom is the Way itself. / One who forms this understanding / is called one of true prajñā." A clear-eyed person seeing an elephant grasps its whole body; so it is when a Buddha sees the nature. As for "the whole ox," this comes from Zhuangzi: Cook Ding butchering the ox never saw the whole ox; following the natural grain to dismantle it, his blade moved freely without him even needing to force a stroke. The moment he raised his eyes, the horns, hooves, and flesh fell apart on their own all at once. For nineteen years, his knife was as sharp as if freshly whetted on a grindstone; this was called "the whole ox." Although it is extraordinary like this, Xuedou said that even if one attained this, the whole elephant and the whole ox do not differ from a cataract in the eye. "Masters from of old have collectively delineated them": even real masters could not grope it out in there. From Kāśyapa down to the ancestral masters of the Western Heaven and this land, the old venerable masters under heaven have merely delineated its names. Xuedou directly cut through: "If you want to see the yellow-headed old man now"—therefore it is said: if you want to see, see immediately; if you need to search to see, you are a thousand or ten thousand miles away. The "yellow-headed old man" is the yellow-faced old man. If you want to see him now, "through every world and every particle of dust, you are halfway on the journey." It is commonly said: "In each dust particle is a world of dust; on each leaf is a Śākya." All the dust particles in the entire great trichiliocosm are seen within a single dust particle. When it is like this, you are still halfway on the journey; over there, another half of the journey remains. Tell me, where is it? Old Śākya himself does not know; how could you have this mountain monk explain it? (瞖: pronounced *yi*, an eye disease.)