Unmon's Staff Turns Into a Dragon

Engo's commentary on the case

Consider Unmon's saying: “The staff has turned into a dragon and swallowed heaven and earth. From where do mountains, rivers, and the great earth come?” If you say they exist, you are blind; if you say they do not, you are dead. Do you see the place where Unmon acts for people? Give me back my staff! People today do not understand Unmon's place of solitary revelation. Instead they say, “Clarify mind through form and reveal principle by attaching it to things.” Consider old Śākyamuni preaching the Dharma for forty-nine years. He could hardly have failed to know this argument. Why, then, did he further hold up a flower, with Kāśyapa smiling faintly? The old fellow immediately smeared on nonsense and said, “I possess the treasury of the true Dharma eye and nirvāṇa's wondrous mind. I entrust it to Mahākāśyapa.” Why would it further be necessary to transmit the mind-seal singly?¹ Since all of you are guests within the patriarchs' gate, do you understand the mind that was singly transmitted? If there is one thing in your breast, mountains, rivers, and the great earth appear before you with a crash. If there is nothing in your breast, then outside there is not so much as a strand of silk. What talk is there of principle merging darkly with wisdom, or objects converging with spirit? Why? Understand one and understand all; clarify one and clarify all. Chōsa said: Students of the Way do not recognize the real, Simply because they have always taken cognizing spirit for it. The root of life and death through measureless eons— Fools call it the original person.² Suppose you suddenly break apart the aggregates and realms, body and mind become one, and nothing remains outside the body: you still have not attained even half. What talk is there of clarifying mind through form or revealing principle by attaching it to things? An ancient said, “As soon as one dust mote rises, the great earth is wholly gathered in.” Tell me: which dust mote is this? If you recognize this one dust mote, you recognize the staff. As soon as the staff is raised, you see its wondrous function crossing freely in every direction. Speaking this way is already an entangling vine—how much more so “turning into a dragon”! Head monk Qing said, “Within the 5,048 scrolls, was anything like this ever said?” Unmon always picked up the whole mechanism and great function at the staff, acting for people with vivid vitality. Bashō instructed the assembly, “The handle of a patch-robed monk lies entirely at the tip of the staff.” Yongjia also said, “It does not display a form in vain contrivance; the Tathāgata's jeweled staff personally traces the tracks.” The base text supplies the pronunciation chí for the final character 褫 in the first line. Long ago, in the time of Dīpaṃkara Buddha, the Tathāgata spread his hair over mud and waited for that Buddha. Dīpaṃkara said, “A brahma monastery should be built at this place.” A heavenly prince then set up a single blade of grass and said, “The brahma monastery is built.”³ Tell me: from where did this news come? The patriarch said, “Take verification at the staff's tip; undertake it beneath the shout.” Tell me: undertake what? If someone suddenly asks, “What is the staff?” Is it turning a somersault? Is it clapping the hands once? All of this is playing with clever spirits. Happily, it has no connection. Setchō's verse says: Unmon acts for people by taking a winding route; Setchō acts for people by a shortcut. Therefore Setchō removes “turns into a dragon.” There is no need to speak this way: it is simply “The staff swallows heaven and earth.” His broad intent is to save people from intellectual interpretation. He further says, “Vainly you speak of peach-blossom waves rushing.” There is no need even to turn into a dragon. At Yu's Gate there are three tiers of waves. Each year in the third month, the peach-blossom waters rise. Fish that can swim against the current and leap through the waves immediately transform into dragons. Heavenly fire naturally burns their tails, and they depart seizing clouds and clutching mist.⁴ Setchō says that even transforming into a dragon is vain talk: “Those whose tails burn do not abide in seizing clouds and clutching mist.” His intent is that even after transforming, the matter does not lie in seizing clouds and clutching mist. “Why must those with exposed gills lose courage and soul?” The preface to Qingliang's commentary says, “Even bodhisattvas who have accumulated practices expose their gills at Dragon Gate.” Its broad intent is to clarify that the Huayan realm cannot be reached by small virtue and small wisdom. It is like fish that attempt Dragon Gate but cannot pass. Their foreheads are marked and they return, stranded in dead water and sandy shoals with their gills exposed. Setchō's intent is: after being marked on the forehead and returning, why must they lose courage and soul? “I have raised it! Do you hear or not?” He adds another note beneath the text and sweeps everything away for you at once. All of you must go clean and untrammeled. Do not remain confused and bustling. If you continue in confusion, you lose the staff. “Seventy-two blows would still be light leniency.” Setchō abandons the heavy for the light on your behalf. An ancient said, “Seventy-two blows reverse and become one hundred fifty.” People today misunderstand and merely calculate the numbers: “It should be seventy-five blows—why is it only seventy-two?” They entirely fail to know that the ancient's intent lies beyond the words. Therefore it is said, “This matter is not within words and phrases,” preventing later people from boring into it. This is why Setchō cites the saying.⁵ Even if you truly were clean and untrammeled, it would be exactly right to give you seventy-two blows, and this would still be light leniency. Even if none of that were so, “with one hundred fifty, it would be hard to release you.” Having finished the verse all at once, Setchō further raised his staff, helping people layer upon layer. Even so, there was not one person with blood beneath the skin.