Unmon's “The Six Do Not Take It In”

Engo's commentary on the case

Unmon says, “The six do not take it in.” This is truly difficult to grasp. Grasp it before the first signs divide and it is already the second head. Recognize it after signs arise and you fall into the third. Clarify it through words and phrases, and in the end you cannot feel your way to it. What, ultimately, is taken as the Dharma body? An adept, merely hearing it raised, gets up and acts. But if you pause in thought and stop the mechanism, submit and await judgment. Senior Fu of Taigen originally lectured on the scriptures. One day on the lecture seat he explained the Dharma body: “Vertically it exhausts the three times; horizontally it extends throughout the ten directions.” A Zen traveler in the audience heard this and laughed. Fu came down and asked, “What shortcoming did I just display? I ask you to explain it.” The traveler said, “Lecturer, you have explained only the measurable side of the Dharma body. You have not seen the Dharma body.” Fu asked, “What ultimately is it?” The traveler said, “Temporarily stop lecturing and sit in a quiet room. You will certainly see it yourself.” Fu followed the advice. Sitting quietly one night, he suddenly heard the bell announcing the fifth watch and abruptly awakened. He knocked on the traveler's door and said, “I understand.” The traveler said, “Try to say it.” Fu replied, “From today onward, I will no longer twist and pinch the nostrils my parents gave me.”² The teaching also says: The Buddha's true Dharma body is like empty space; responding to things, it manifests forms like the moon in water. A monk asked Kassan, “What is the Dharma body?” Kassan said, “The Dharma body has no form.” “What is the Dharma eye?” “The Dharma eye has no flaw.” Unmon says, “The six do not take it in.” Some explain this by saying there are six faculties, six objects, and six consciousnesses, all born from the Dharma body, while the six faculties cannot contain it. If you make this emotional interpretation, it has no connection—and you further implicate Unmon. If you want to see, simply see. There is no place for drilling and carving. Have you not seen the teaching say, “This Dharma cannot be understood through thought and discrimination”? Unmon's answers often provoke emotional interpretations. Therefore one phrase must contain three phrases, while still not failing the point of your question. Meeting the time and occasion, every word and phrase, every dot and stroke, has a place to emerge. Thus it is said, “Penetrate one phrase, and a thousand and ten thousand phrases penetrate at once.” Tell me: is it the Dharma body or the ancestral teacher? I spare you thirty blows. Setchō's verse says: Setchō skillfully produces an eye in a place without seam or gap, versifying it so people may see. Unmon says, “The six do not take it in.” Why does Setchō instead say, “One, two, three, four, five, six”? Even the blue-eyed foreign monk cannot complete the count. Thus it is said, “Permit the old foreigner to know, but do not permit him to comprehend.” It must be returned to the children and grandchildren inside his own house. Just now I said that every word and phrase meets the time and occasion. Penetrate this and you know the Way does not reside in words. Otherwise, you cannot avoid emotional interpretation. My late teacher Wuzu said: Śākyamuni Buddha—a lowly guest acting as son. The cypress tree before the courtyard: one, two, three, four, five.³ If beneath Unmon's phrase you see truly and appropriately, you draw near this realm. “At Shōrin he falsely said he entrusted it to Shenguang.” The Second Ancestor was first named Shenguang. Later it was also said that Bodhidharma returned to India. He had been buried below Mount Xiong'er. When the envoy Song Yun was returning from the western regions, he saw Bodhidharma on a western ridge, carrying one sandal in his hand and going back west. After the envoy returned and reported this to the emperor, the grave was opened and only one sandal remained.⁴ Setchō asks: in truth, how could this matter be entrusted? If there was no entrusting, why does he say, “Gathering his robe, he is further said to have returned to India”? And why, in this land, are there nevertheless two or three who transmitted it successively in this way? There is undeniable complication here. One must grasp it before entering and acting. “India—vast, with no place to seek him. Last night instead he lodged facing Milk Peak.” Tell me: where is he right now? Engo struck and said, “Blind!”