景德傳燈錄 8.28

8.28

Chan Master Tancang of the Xiyuan Hermitage on Nanyue originally received the mind-seal from Chan Master Daji. Later he visited Upādhyāya Shitou Qian, becoming clear and thoroughly enlightened. In the second year of the Zhenyuan era of the Tang, he hid away on the highest peak of Mount Heng, where people rarely visited him. Soon, owing to an ailment in his legs, he moved to Xiyuan, where fellow practitioners flourished. One day the master was preparing his bath himself. A monk asked, "Why not have a novice do it?" The master clapped his hands three times. (Dongshan said, "Both are the conditions of the moment; among them, Xiyuan's was exquisitely subtle." A monk asked Caoshan, "When the ancient clapped his hands, did he not clarify the matter concerning the novice?" Caoshan said, "What is the transcendental matter?" The monk had no reply. Caoshan said, "This novice!") The master kept an intelligent dog. Once, when he was walking in meditation at night, the dog tugged at the master's robe. The master immediately returned to his room. The dog then lay in wait beside the door, barking and repeatedly lunging as if ready to bite fiercely. At dawn, there was a great python in the eastern kitchen, several tens of feet long, opening its mouth and blowing breath, blazing with poisonous flames. An attendant asked to flee from it. The master said, "Can death be avoided? It approaches with poison; I receive it with compassion. Poison has no substantial nature; when stimulated, it is strong. If compassion is without attachment, foe and friend are the same." When he finished speaking, the python lowered its head, moved slowly away, and suddenly vanished. On another night there was a band of thieves, and the dog again tugged at the master's robe. The master said to the thieves, "In this thatched hut there may be things to your liking; take whatever you wish, I grudge you nothing." Moved by his words, the thieves all bowed their heads and dispersed.