Unmon's Rice and Water

Engo's commentary on the case

Can you determine it? If you can, Unmon's nostrils are in your hands. If you cannot, your nostrils are in Unmon's hands. Unmon has phrases that cut nails and shear iron. This one phrase contains three phrases. Some, when asked, immediately say, “Rice in the bowl—every grain is round. Water in the bucket—every drop is manifest.” Understand it this way and you entirely fail to see where Unmon truly helps people. The verse says: Earlier Setchō versified Unmon's “A fitting answer to the one statement”: The answer to one statement is far too solitary and absolute; an iron hammer without a hole drives the wedge down again. Later he versified Baso's saying “apart from the four propositions and beyond the hundred negations”: The head is hidden and white; the sea's head is black. A clear-eyed patch-robed monk cannot understand.² Penetrate the present public case and you see this verse. At the outset Setchō immediately says, “Rice in the bowl; water in the bucket.” The words have resonance within them; the phrase displays the mechanism. “A talkative teacher finds it hard to put in his mouth.” Directly afterward Setchō appends a footnote for you. If you seek arcane or subtle principles here, calculating makes it increasingly hard to speak. Setchō could have stopped here. He likes first to hold fast above your head, fearing that someone with eyes in the assembly will see through him. In the latter part he must let one move pass. Bending down for beginners, he opens the verse so people may see. The Northern Dipper remains in the north; the Southern Star remains only in the south. Therefore he says, “The Northern Dipper and Southern Star do not shift position.” “White waves flooding the sky rise from level ground.” Suddenly waves and billows arise on flat earth—what then? Looking through events is easy; seeking beneath the root of thought, in the end you cannot feel your way to it. This is like an iron stake: you cannot push it aside or insert your mouth. If you deliberate, wanting to understand but not understanding; if you stop, yet do not stop—you present a confused bag in disorder. You are precisely “every one a wealthy man's son without underpants.” Hanshan's poem says: The six extremes constantly entwine them in suffering; the nine dimensions are discussed in vain. The talented are abandoned in the grassy marsh; those without influence are shut behind a bramble gate. The sun rises, yet the cliff remains dark; smoke clears, yet the valley stays dim. Among them are wealthy men's sons— every one entirely without underpants.³