萬松老人評唱天童覺和尚頌古從容庵錄 4.27

4.27

The Master said: Wang Jiefu's riddle on playing chess says: 'Neither dares take the lead, nor does this side dare go first. Precisely because neither dares take the lead, there is nothing to contend over. Precisely because there is nothing to contend over, one enters into non-dying and non-arising.' Chess is an art of contending for the initiative: if you win, you win an opening move; if you lose, you lose by a clash of heads. Long before you place a stone, Zhaozhou has already seen several moves ahead. Yanyang was only concerned with flying horizontally and leaping straight ahead, capturing a few extra territories, not knowing that the axe handle was already rotten. The Wang Family's Biographies of Immortals states: During the Long'an era of the Jin dynasty, Wang Zhi of Xin'an County was gathering firewood when he reached Xuan Shi slope. He saw four boys in a stone cave playing chess. They gave Zhi an object like a date; holding it in his mouth, he felt no hunger. By the time the game ended, the axe handle at his waist had rotted, and his clothes fluttered in the wind. Reaching home at dusk, decades had already passed. Zhaozhou's two turning words—'Put it down' and 'Carry it away'—extract the sinews and marrow, change the bones and wash the entrails; then one walks hand in hand with Zhaozhou, pacing the void and soaring lightly. There are those who say: 'Pure leisure is the true root of the Way; having no business makes one a minor immortal.' Even so, do not take having no business to be having no business; often business arises precisely from having no business.