The Overturned Tea Kettle at Zhaoqing

Engo's commentary on the case

If you wish to know the meaning of buddha-nature, observe the occasion and its conditions. Governor Wang administered Quanzhou and had long studied with Zhaoqing. One day he entered the monastery as Senior Lang was preparing tea. Lang overturned the kettle. The governor too was an adept. As soon as he saw the kettle overturn, he asked, “Senior, what is beneath the tea stove?” Lang said, “The stove-supporting spirit.” There is undeniably resonance in his words. Yet beginning and end conflict: he loses the lineage intent and injures edge and hand. He not only fails himself but also offends another. Although this matter has neither gain nor loss, when picked up it still has intimate and distant, black and white. The matter does not reside in words, yet one must distinguish a living point through words. Thus it is said, “Study a living phrase, not a dead phrase.” Based on Lang's answer, he is like a mad dog chasing a clod. The governor brushed out his sleeves and left, apparently rejecting him. Myōshō said, “Senior Lang has eaten Zhaoqing's rice, only to go beyond the river and beat wild burned stumps.” A wild burned stump is a charred wooden stake in the wasteland. Myōshō means that Lang did not travel in the correct place but ran outside. Lang pressed him: “What about you, Master?” Myōshō said, “A nonhuman being gained the advantage.” Myōshō naturally has a place to emerge and does not fail Lang's question. Thus it is said, “A fine dog bites a person without showing its teeth.” Master Zhe of Isan said, “Governor Wang greatly resembles Lin Xiangru seizing back the jade, his beard and hair thrusting up his cap. Yet Myōshō could not restrain his cleverness, and it was difficult to find an advantage over him.”² “If I were Senior Lang and saw the governor brush his sleeves and leave, I would set down the kettle and laugh aloud. Why? See it and fail to take it, and the chance is difficult to meet in a thousand years.” Baoshou asked the tinker Hu, “I have long heard of Hu the Tinker. Is that you?” Hu said yes. “Can you mend empty space?” “Please break it and bring it here, Master.” Baoshou struck him. Hu did not accept this. Baoshou said, “Another day a talkative master will expose it for you.” Hu later met Jōshū and recounted the exchange. Jōshū asked why he had been struck. Hu said he did not know his error. Jōshū said, “You cannot even manage this one seam; how would you have him break empty space and bring it?” Hu became quiet. Jōshū supplied the answer, “First mend this one seam,” and Hu had an awakening. When Mi Qishi returned from pilgrimage, an elder asked, “On a moonlit night, a severed well-rope is called a snake. When you see Buddha, what do you call it?” Mi said, “If there is something seen, one is the same as an ordinary being.” The elder said, “Still an old peach pit a thousand years stale.” National Teacher Zhong asked court scholar Zilin, “I hear you understand how to annotate the Siyi Sutra. Is that so?” Zilin said yes. The National Teacher said, “To annotate scripture, one must understand Buddha's intent.” Zilin said, “If I did not understand the intent, how would I dare say I annotated scripture?” The National Teacher had an attendant bring him a bowl of water with seven grains of rice and one chopstick laid across it. He asked what it meant. Zilin did not understand. The National Teacher said, “You do not even understand this old teacher's intent. What more can you say about Buddha's intent?”³ Governor Wang and Senior Lang had many exchanges of this sort. At the end Setchō says, “At that moment, simply kick over the tea stove.” Although Myōshō answered as he did, he does not equal Setchō. When Seppō served as rice cook in Dongshan's community, Dongshan once asked what he was doing. “Washing rice.” “Are you washing the sand away from the rice, or the rice away from the sand?” “Sand and rice both go at once.” “What will the community eat?” Seppō overturned the basin. Dongshan said, “Your conditions do not lie here.” Even so, how does this compare with Setchō saying, “At that moment, simply kick over the tea stove”? The occasion is of one kind, but when Setchō reaches its function, he naturally animates the present and illumines the past, with a place vividly free. The verse says: “The incoming question was like an axe wielded into wind. The response to the occasion lacked skill.” The governor's question resembles an axe wielded so fast it becomes wind. This allusion comes from Zhuangzi. A person of Ying was filling a small hole in a mud wall by throwing a ball of plaster. A bit of mud landed on the tip of his nose. A craftsman beside him said, “Your patching is very skillful. Let me wield my axe and remove the mud from your nose.” The speck was as thin as a fly's wing. The craftsman swung his axe into a wind and cut it all away without injuring the nose, while the person of Ying stood without losing composure. Both were marvelously skilled.⁴ Although Senior Lang responded to the occasion, his speech lacked skill. Thus Setchō says, “The incoming question was like an axe wielded into wind. The response to the occasion lacked skill.” “How lamentable—the one-eyed dragon had never displayed fangs and claws.” Myōshō's words are undeniably extraordinary. Yet what can be done when he has not shown claws and fangs that seize clouds and grasp mist? Setchō, listening from the side, does not accept him. Unable to restrain his cleverness, he breathes out on Myōshō's behalf. Secretly he goes to accord with Myōshō's intent while versifying his own saying about kicking over the tea stove: When fangs and claws open, clouds and thunder arise. How many times have waves run against the current? Unmon said, “I do not expect you to produce a wave against the current. Merely possess an intent that follows the current, and that too will do.” Thus it is said, “Recognize beneath a living phrase and you will never forget through endless ages.” The statements of Senior Lang and Myōshō seem dead. If you wish to see the living point, simply look at Setchō kicking over the tea stove.