Hekiganroku / Biyan lu · CASE 63
Nansen Cuts the Cat in Two
The Blue Cliff Record
Engo's pointer
Where the road of thought does not reach is precisely where one should raise and examine it. Where verbal explanation does not extend is where one should urgently focus the eye. If you can turn like lightning and shoot like a star, you can tip over the deep pool and topple the mountain. Is there anyone in the assembly who can discern this? Attend to the case.
Case
One day, the east and west halls at Nansen's monastery were fighting over a cat. Nansen saw them, lifted up the cat, and said, “If you can speak, I will not cut it.” The assembly had no reply. Nansen cut the cat into two pieces.
Setchō's verse
Both halls were fraudulent meditation monks. Stirring smoke and dust, they could do nothing. Fortunately, Nansen could raise the command. One stroke, two pieces—let it be uneven. The base text glosses 頗 with the fanqie 普禾, defines it as “uneven” or “partial,” and gives the pronunciation pō.3
Footnotes 3
- Engo's “fundamentally there was no cutting” is an interpretive claim that conflicts at the ordinary narrative and ethical level with the old case's explicit “cut the cat into two pieces.” The edition preserves the conflict rather than using nondual language to cancel the reported act. ↩
- This is lexical apparatus embedded in the received base text, not a fifth verse interjection. It supports the meanings “partial,” “inclined,” or “uneven,” but does not determine how Setchō evaluates the act. ↩
- Engo's final question prevents “command” from functioning as self-authorizing power. The text never names a rule that warranted the killing; the demand for grounds remains open. ↩
About this version and its sources
- Full source citation
- Editorial title: 南泉斬猫兒. Base: CBETA T2003, T48n2003_p0194c04–p0195a13. Angle brackets represent inline notes.
- Method
- Direct critical-edition translation from the cited received base text. Source claims, hagiography, uncertainty, and unresolved readings remain identified in the notes and project record.
- Editorial uncertainty
- Independent philological and reader review remain pending.
- Rights
- Project translation © Tulsa Zen Center Critical Edition contributors. Source text is cited by edition; redistribution policy requires final organizational approval.
- Revision identifier
- 58c669896bf5
Engo's commentary on the case
In the house of a lineage teacher, observe one movement and one stillness, one exit and one entry. Tell me: what is the intent? Monasteries throughout the world discuss this story of cutting the cat in a vast clamor. Some say the point lies precisely in the lifting; others say it lies in the cutting. None of this has any connection at all. If Nansen had not lifted it, they too would have crowded around and exhausted every rational explanation. They entirely fail to know that the ancients had an eye that settles heaven and earth and a sword that settles heaven and earth. Tell me: ultimately, who cut the cat? Consider Nansen lifting it and saying, “If you can speak, I will not cut it.” Suppose someone at the time had been able to speak. Tell me: would Nansen have cut it or not? Therefore it is said, “When the true command is carried out, the ten directions are cut off. Stick your head beyond heaven and look: who is a person within it?” In fact, at that time, fundamentally there was no cutting. This story too does not lie at the place of cutting or not cutting.2 This matter is plainly evident and so distinct; do not seek it upon the dust of emotion and conceptual opinion. If you seek it there, you betray Nansen. Simply look directly at the keen sword-edge: being works, nonbeing works, and neither being nor nonbeing works. Therefore an ancient said, “At an extremity there is change; through change there is passage.” People today do not understand adaptive change and passage. They merely keep running upon words and phrases. When Nansen lifted it this way, it was not that he expected people immediately to supply some particular words. He only wanted people to recognize it personally, each employing it and knowing it personally. If you do not understand this way, in the end you cannot get hold of it. Setchō versifies it straight on: “Both halls were fraudulent meditation monks.” Setchō does not die beneath the phrase, nor does he acknowledge what is in front of the donkey and behind the horse. He has a place to turn it around and immediately says, “Stirring smoke and dust, they could do nothing.” Setchō and Nansen walk hand in hand. One phrase has finished the matter. The head monks of the two halls had no place to rest. Wherever they went, they merely kept stirring smoke and dust and could do nothing. Fortunately, Nansen decided this public case for them and gathered it up completely clean. Yet they were left unable to reach a village ahead or an inn behind. Therefore Setchō says, “Fortunately, Nansen could raise the command. One stroke, two pieces—let it be uneven.” Directly, in one stroke, he made two pieces and paid no further attention to whether there was partiality. Tell me: on the authority of what command did Nansen act?4