Hyakujō—Speak with Throat and Lips Closed

Engo's commentary on the case

Isan, Gohō, and Ungan stood together attending Hyakujō. Hyakujō asked Isan, “Close throat and lips together. How will you speak?” Isan said, “Instead, I ask you to speak, Reverend.” Hyakujō said, “I do not object to speaking for you. I fear that afterward I would bereave my descendants.” Although Hyakujō spoke this way, his cooking pot had already been seized by someone else. Hyakujō then asked Gohō. Gohō said, “Reverend, you too must close them.” Hyakujō said, “At a place where no one is present, I shade my forehead and watch for you.” He also asked Ungan. Ungan said, “Reverend, do you have it or not?” Hyakujō said, “You bereave my descendants.” The three people each formed one house. An ancient said, “Countless people die on level ground; one who passes through the thorn forest is a fine hand.” Therefore the house of a lineage teacher tests people with the thorn forest. Why? People cannot be tested beneath phrases of ordinary feeling. In the patch-robed monk's house one must display the mechanism within a phrase and distinguish the precise point within words. A board-carrying fellow mostly dies within the phrase and says, “With throat and lips closed there is no place to put the mouth.” A person capable of adaptive passage has a wave against the current. Directly at the head of the question there is one road that neither wounds the edge nor injures the hand. Isan said, “Instead, I ask you to speak, Reverend.” Tell me: what was his intent? Here it is like fire struck from stone or a flash of lightning. Pressed at the question, he immediately answers and naturally has a road to free himself, without expending the slightest strength. Therefore it is said, “He investigates the living phrase, not the dead phrase.” Hyakujō did not heed him, but only said, “I do not object to speaking for you. I fear that afterward I would bereave my descendants.” In general, a lineage teacher acting for people pulls nails and extracts wedges. People today would say, “This answer does not approve him and does not receive his words.” They entirely fail to know that within it a single road of living mechanism stands like a wall a thousand fathoms high. Guest and host exchange places, vivid and leaping with life. Setchō loved the style of these words—turning freely and at ease, while also holding the territory firm. Therefore he versified: The places where these three answered were each different. One stood like a wall a thousand fathoms high; one had illumination and function simultaneously; one could not finish saving himself. “Instead, I ask you to speak, Reverend.” Setchō already displays the mechanism within this single phrase. He further presses lightly within it, making it easy to see: “Horns grow on the tiger's head as it emerges from wild grass.” Isan's answer resembles placing horns atop a fierce tiger. What place is there to approach it? Have you not heard that a monk asked Razan, “What is it like to be born together but not die together?” Razan said, “Like an ox without horns.” The monk asked, “What is it like to be born together and also die together?” Razan said, “Like a tiger wearing horns.” Setchō has versified it completely in one phrase. With further talent for transformation, he says, “Across the ten continents, spring ends and flowers wither.” In the sea there are three mountains and ten continents, where a hundred years make one spring. Setchō's language bears graceful style, turning and spreading at ease. When spring ends, hundreds, thousands, and tens of thousands of flowering plants wither all at once. Only the coral-tree grove does not know how to wither. It rivals the great sun, their light shining together. Precisely then it is undeniably extraordinary. Setchō uses this to clarify “Instead, I ask you to speak, Reverend.” The ten continents are dependencies of countries beyond the seas: 1. Zuzhou produces incense that summons back the soul. 2. Yingzhou grows numinous mushrooms and jade stones; its springs taste like wine. 3. Xuanzhou produces an immortal medicine that grants long life when taken. 4. Changzhou produces papayas and jade blossoms. 5. Yanzhou produces fire-laundered cloth. 6. Yuanzhou produces a numinous spring like honey. 7. Shengzhou has mountains and rivers but neither cold nor heat. 8. Fenglinzhou supplies phoenix beaks and qilin horns, from which people boil glue that rejoins severed bowstrings. 9. Jukuzhou produces lions and beasts with copper heads and iron foreheads. 10. Tanzhou produces Kunwu stone, made into swords that cut jade like mud. One textual note gives “Liuzhou” as an alternate name.² The Miscellaneous Traditions of Foreign Countries on Coral says that southwest of Daqin, seven or eight hundred li into the swelling sea, one reaches Coral Isle. Bedrock lies beneath the isle; coral grows upon the stone, and people gather it with iron nets. The Record of the Ten Continents also says that coral grows on the floor of the southern sea like trees two or three feet high, with branches but no bark. It resembles jade, red and lustrous, and grows in response to the moon. Every branch-tip has a lunar halo.³ The base text closes with an editorial direction to compare this case with the first public case of fascicle eight.⁴