景德傳燈錄 16.12

16.12

Chan Master Juhui of Mount Daguang in Tanzhou was a native of Jingzhao surnamed Wang. He first came to Shishuang's room, requesting instruction in the abbot's quarters for two years. He was then ordered to take charge of the Northern Pagoda. In hemp clothes and straw sandals, he almost forgot body and mind. One day Shishuang, wishing to test what he had attained, posed a question: "Every year the state passes scholars in the examinations; do they still get to bow before the court gates?" The master said, "There is someone who does not seek advancement." Shishuang said, "Relying on what?" The master said, "For the moment, not for fame." Shishuang also asked because of an illness, "Apart from today, is there any other time?" The master said, "He also does not say today is it." Shishuang thoroughly approved. Interrogated and tested four or five times like this, his answers were never amiss. He stayed for more than twenty years. Upāsaka Hu of Liuyang invited him to reside on Mount Daguang to expound the tenets of the school. A monk asked, "Just as Bodhidharma is an ancestor, is he or is he not?" The master said, "He is not an ancestor." The monk said, "Since he is not an ancestor, what did he come for?" The master said, "Because you do not recognize the ancestor." The monk said, "What about after recognizing him?" The master said, "Only then will you know he is not an ancestor." He asked, "How was it before chaos had divided?" The master said, "Who could the teachings of the time describe?" The master also said, "The teachings of a whole lifetime only take care of the people of that generation. Even if you peel away to the very bottom, you merely turn out to be someone who has finished the matter. You must not simply take that as the matter beneath the patch-robe. Therefore it is said: 'Forty-nine years could not clarify it; forty-nine years could not set it forth.' In general, his instructions to students were mostly like this." On the third day of the ninth month in the third year of the Tianfu reign of the Tang (a guihai year, 903 CE), he returned to stillness at the age of sixty-seven.