景德傳燈錄 18.23

18.23

Master Lingzhao, Zhenjue Dashi of Longhua Temple in Hangzhou, was a native of Goryeo. Drifting like duckweed through Min and Yue, he ascended the hall of Xuefeng and silently accorded with the profound purport. He possessed only a single patched robe and diligently served the community with labor. In Min he was called "Zhao of the Cloth Robe." One evening, pointing to the half-moon, he asked Sthavira Pu, "Where has that other piece gone?" Pu said, "Do not engage in delusional thinking." The Master said, "A piece has been lost." Although the assembly praised and admired him, he kept to a placid and unassuming demeanour. At first he resided on Mount Qiyun in Wuzhou. He entered the hall and remained silent for a long while. Suddenly he stretched out his hand, looked at the assembly, and said, "Beg for a little bit! Beg for a little bit!" He also said, "One person transmits a falsehood, and ten thousand people transmit it as truth." A monk asked, "Can a grass-cutter boy sing and dance? I wonder if there is still one at the present time?" The Master stepped down from his seat, danced, and said, "Does the novice understand?" The monk said, "I do not understand." The Master said, "When the mountain monk treads out a tune, he also does not understand." A monk asked, "At the assembly on Vulture Peak, dharma was transmitted to dharma; I wonder what Qiyun will entrust?" The Master said, "I cannot lay waste to Qiyun for the sake of you alone." The monk said, "Could it not be the direct entrustment?" The Master said, "Do not cause the great assembly to laugh." A monk asked, "A single pellet of returned elixir transmutes iron into gold; a single word of the ultimate truth transmutes an ordinary person into a sage. Please, Master, give a touch." The Master said, "Do you know that Qiyun transmutes gold into iron?" The monk said, "Transmuting gold into iron has never been heard of before. I venture to hope you will deign to instruct me with a single word of the ultimate truth." The Master said, "If you do not recognize it under these words, later regret will be hard to overtake." Later, the Master resided at Jingqing Cloister in Yuezhou, where the ocean-like assembly rejoiced and followed him. One day he said to the assembly, "I will carry out the order to the full!" A monk said, "Please, Master, carry out the order to the full." The Master said, "Hong! Hong!" A monk asked, "What is the student's fundamental matter?" The Master said, "Jingqing does not spare his mouth." A monk asked, "Please, Master, carve and polish me." The Master said, "Eighty percent." The monk said, "Why not one hundred percent?" The Master said, "Do you know the principle of Jingqing's working upon raw material?" The Master asked a monk, "Where do you come from?" The monk said, "I come from Wufeng." The Master said, "What did you come to do?" The monk said, "To pay homage to the Upādhyāya." The Master said, "Why not pay homage to yourself?" The monk said, "I have already paid homage." The Master said, "The water of Mirror Lake is shallow." A monk asked, "What is the primary phrase?" The Master said, "Do not mistakenly apply words and phrases." The monk said, "Can it be that the Master has no skillful means?" The Master said, "Aconite raising a young sparrow." A monk asked, "The transcendental path is not transmitted by the thousand sages; I wonder who can transmit it?" The Master said, "Even the thousand sages doubt me." The monk said, "Could that be the transmission?" The Master said, "The Emperor of Jin executed Ji Kang." A monk asked, "Śākyamuni shut his room in Magadha; Vimalakīrti closed his mouth in Vaiśālī. What is the meaning of this?" The Master said, "Under the eastern corridor, in twos and threes." The Master addressed the assembly, saying, "Everywhere they take the Vairocana Dharmakāya as the ultimate standard; here at Jingqing it is not so. You must know that Vairocana has a master, and the Dharmakāya has a lord." A monk asked, "Who is the master of Vairocana and the lord of the Dharmakāya?" The Master said, "How could the two venerable gentlemen dare to discuss it?" A monk asked, "An ancient said: 'Seeing form, one immediately sees mind.' This right here is form; which one is mind?" The Master said, "Asking like this—are you not trying to deceive this mountain monk?" A monk asked, "Before it was analyzed, please, Master, make a judgment." The Master said, "Where has it fallen?" The monk said, "If so, then it was a slip of the tongue." The Master said, "Hanshan sees off Guishan." He also said, "Hold on, hold on! The ācārya slipped with his tongue, and the mountain monk slipped with his tongue." The monk said, "A ferocious tiger does not eat its cub." The Master said, "The donkey's head comes out, the horse's head turns back." The Master suddenly asked a monk, "Do you remember?" The monk said, "I remember." The Master said, "What did [I] say?" The monk said, "What did [you] say?" The Master said, "A boy from Huainan enters a temple." A monk asked, "What is it that swift eagles and swift falcons cannot catch up with?" The Master said, "Let the ācārya ask differently, and the mountain monk will answer differently." The monk said, "Please, Master, answer differently." The Master said, "A traveller going ten leagues falls short by one stage." A monk asked, "Gold dust is valuable, yet when it cannot be put in the eye, what then?" The Master said, "If it cannot be put in, can it still be put in?" The monk bowed. The Master said, "Spirit of the Deep Sands." A monk asked, "Delivering sentient beings under the bodhi tree—what is the bodhi tree?" The Master said, "Very much like a chinaberry tree." The monk said, "Why is it like a chinaberry tree?" The Master said, "Since it was never a fine horse, why labor with the whip's shadow?" Later, Governor Qian of Huhu divined a site at the western pass of Hangzhou and founded the Baoci Cloister, inviting the Master to open the Dharma teaching. The Zen assembly gathered and relied upon him. Soon after, King Qian built Longhua Temple, and welcomed the sacred relics and utensils of the Great Master Fu of Jinhua to place therein. He ordered the Master to be the abbot. On the twenty-sixth day of the intercalary seventh month in the twelfth year of Tianfu of the Jin dynasty, the cyclical year dingwei, he passed away at the temple at the age of seventy-eight. His stupa was erected on Mount Daci.