景德傳燈錄 14.36

14.36

Chan Master Yuanzhi of Mount Daowu in Tanzhou was a native of Haihun in Yuzhang. His secular surname was Zhang. In his youth, he relied on Upādhyāya Pan, receiving instruction and taking the precepts. He joined the Dharma assembly of Yaoshan and intimately tallied with the mind-seal. One day, Yaoshan asked, "Where have you come from?" He said, "I have come from roaming the mountains." Yaoshan said, "Without leaving this room, speak quickly!" He said, "The crow on the mountain is white as snow; the swimming fish at the bottom of the ravine are ceaselessly busy." Once, while the Master and Yunyan were standing in attendance, Yaoshan said, "Where wisdom does not reach, be extremely careful not to speak of it. If you speak of it, horns will grow on your head. How about it, ascetic Zhi?" The Master thereupon walked out. Yunyan asked Yaoshan, "Why did Senior Brother Zhi not reply to the Upādhyāya?" Yaoshan said, "My back aches today. He actually understood. You go and ask him." Yunyan immediately went and asked the Master, "Why did you, Senior Brother, not reply to the Upādhyāya just now?" The Master said, "You go back and ask the Upādhyāya." (A monk asked Yunju, "What is the meaning of 'be extremely careful not to speak of it'?" Yunju said, "These words are the most poisonous." The monk said, "What are the most poisonous words?" Yunju said, "With a single blow of the staff, beating dragons and snakes to death.") When Yunyan was about to pass away, he sent someone to deliver a farewell letter. The Master unfolded the letter, looked at it, and said, "Yunyan did not know what is there to regret; at that time I did not speak to him. Even though it is like this, fundamentally he does not go against being a son of Yaoshan." (Xuanjue said, "When the ancient spoke like this, was there still [something], or not?" He also said, "At that time Yunyan did not understand. But tell me: what was the place he did not understand?") Yaoshan ascended the hall and said, "I have a phrase that has never been spoken to anyone." The Master came forward and said, "It has followed along." A monk asked Yaoshan, "How should that phrase be spoken?" Yaoshan said, "It is not speech." The Master said, "It has long since been spoken." Once, when the Master was lying down, Baishu said, "What are you doing?" The Master said, "Covering over." Baishu said, "Is lying down it, or is sitting it?" The Master said, "It is not in either extreme." Baishu said, "What about covering over?" The Master said, "Do not talk nonsense." When the Master saw Baishu sitting, the Master said, "What are you doing?" Baishu said, "Paying reverence." The Master said, "How long has it been since we were separated?" Baishu said, "Just so." He then flicked his sleeves and went out. The Master took up his bamboo hat and was going out. Yunyan said, "What are you doing?" The Master said, "It has a use." Yunyan said, "What will you do when wind and rain come?" The Master said, "Cover over." Yunyan said, "Does that one still receive being covered over?" The Master said, "Although it is like this, for now there is no leakage." Once, Guishan asked Yunyan, "What does bodhi use as a seat?" Yunyan said, "It uses non-action as a seat." Yunyan then asked Guishan. Guishan said, "It uses the emptiness of all phenomena as a seat." Guishan also asked the Master, "How about it?" The Master said, "If sitting, let him sit; if lying down, let him lie down. There is one person who neither sits nor lies down: speak quickly, speak quickly!" Guishan asked the Master, "Where have you come from?" The Master said, "I have come from visiting the sick." [Guishan] said, "How many people are sick?" The Master said, "There are those who are sick, and there are those who are not sick." [Guishan] said, "Could the one who is not sick be ascetic Zhi?" The Master said, "Being sick and not being sick have nothing at all to do with that one. Speak urgently, speak urgently!" A monk asked, "'Ten thousand miles without clouds' is not yet the original sky. What is the original sky?" The Master said, "Today is good for drying wheat in the sun." [A monk] asked, "Why are the footprints of a bodhisattva without supernatural powers hard to find?" The Master said, "Only those on the same path know." [The monk] said, "Does the Upādhyāya know?" The Master said, "I do not know." [The monk] said, "Why do you not know?" The Master said, "You do not understand my words." Yunyan asked, "What is the Senior Brother's house style?" The Master said, "What is the use of having you point at it?" [Yunyan] said, "How long has this one been absent?" The Master said, "The roots of your teeth are still raw and astringent." [Yunyan] also asked, "Where should one apply effort nowadays?" The Master said, "Only when a thousand people call and you do not turn your head will there be a small part." [Yunyan] said, "What when a fire suddenly breaks out?" The Master said, "It can burn the great earth." The Master asked a monk, "Setting aside sparks and flames, which one is fire?" The monk said, "It is not fire." Another monk then asked the Master, "Do you still see the fire?" The Master said, "I see it." [The monk] said, "From where does seeing arise?" The Master said, "Setting aside walking, standing, sitting, and lying down, please ask again." Nanquan instructed the assembly, saying, "Does the Dharma-body possess the four great elements? If someone can say, I will give him a pair of trousers." The Master said, "The ground of the nature is not empty; emptiness is not the ground of the nature. This is the earth element. The [other] three (one edition has 'four') elements are also like this." Nanquan did not violate his previous words, and so gave the Master the trousers. Seeing that Yunyan was indisposed, the Master said to him, "Leaving this shell behind, where shall we meet?" Yunyan said, "We shall meet at the place of neither arising nor ceasing." The Master said, "Why not say: 'Not at the place of neither arising nor ceasing, nor do I seek to meet'?" The Master saw Yunyan mending straw sandals and said, "What are you doing?" Yunyan said, "Using what is worn out to mend what is worn out." The Master said, "Why not say: 'That which is worn out is not worn out'?" The Master heard a monk reciting the Vimalakīrti Sūtra: "Eight thousand bodhisattvas and five hundred śrāvakas all wished to follow Mañjuśrī." The Master said, "Where were they going?" The monk had no reply. The Master then struck him. Later a monk asked Heshan; Heshan replied on his behalf, saying, "Only those who serve can go along." The Master went down the mountain and arrived at Wufeng. Wufeng asked, "Do you still recognize the old elder Yaoshan?" The Master said, "I do not recognize him." Wufeng said, "Why do you not recognize him?" The Master said, "I do not recognize, I do not recognize!" [A monk] asked, "What is the Upādhyāya's house style?" The Master stepped down from the meditation bench, made a woman's bow, and said, "Thank you for coming from afar; I have treated you with no hospitality at all." [A monk] asked, "What is the meaning of the Ancestral Master's coming from the West?" The Master said, "In the Eastern Land he has never been met." [A monk] asked, "When a vegetarian feast is offered for the late master, does the late master still come, or not?" The Master said, "How do you all prepare the feast?" [A monk] asked, "What is it when the jeweled canopy over one's head cannot say 'It is I'?" The Master said, "Let it be." [The monk] said, "What about the Upādhyāya?" The Master said, "I do not have this one." Shishuang asked the Master, "A hundred years later, if someone asks about the ultimate matter, how will you speak to him?" The Master called to a novice. The novice responded. The Master said, "Add water to the pure water vase." After a long pause, the Master asked Shishuang, "What did you ask just now?" Shishuang brought it up again. The Master then got up and left. On another day, Shishuang asked again, "When struck, a piece of the Upādhyāya's bone rings like bronze. Where has it gone?" The Master called to the attendant. The attendant responded. The Master said, "It has gone in the year of the donkey." In the ninth month of the ninth year of the Dahe era of the Tang (an yimao year), the Master manifested illness and was in pain. The assembly of monks inquired after his health. The Master said, "There is receiving that is not compensation—do you know it?" The assembly looked solemn and distressed. On the eleventh day, about to depart, he said to the assembly, "I shall travel west; by principle there is no moving east." Having finished speaking, he announced his passing. His age was sixty-seven. After the cremation, several pieces of numinous bone were obtained. A stupa was erected on the southern side of Mount Shishuang. An imperial decree bestowed the posthumous title Great Master Xiuyi; the stupa was called Baoxiang.