Hyakujō Asks Gohō

Engo's commentary on the case

Isan held the territory firm; Gohō cut off the many streams. For this little bit, a real fellow must raise it face to face, like wrestling before the horse. Deliberation is not permitted. He employs it directly—urgent, swift, perilous, and steep—unlike Isan's expansive and overflowing style. Meditation monks today walk only beneath the rack and cannot emerge a head above it. Therefore it is said, “If you want intimacy, do not bring a question to ask.” At the place of Gohō's answer, he cuts everything off straight on. It is undeniably quick and outstanding. Hyakujō said, “At a place where no one is present, I shade my brow and watch for you.” Tell me: does he approve Gohō or not approve him? Does he kill or give life? Seeing Gohō roll along vividly, Hyakujō merely gives him one point. Setchō's verse says: “Reverend, you too must close them.” Within this one phrase Setchō presses once: “On the dragon-and-snake formation, observe the strategy.” It resembles two battle formations arrayed, with someone bursting out and plunging in, released seven ways and crossing eight. A person with the hands and feet of a fighting general and great strategic capacity, mounted on one horse with a single spear, emerges and disappears freely within the dragon-and-snake formation. How could you surround him? Unless one were this person, how could one know there is strategy like this? In these three lines of verse, Setchō speaks from within and depicts it this way. It greatly resembles Li Guang's divine arrow: “At heaven's edge ten thousand miles away, one osprey flies.” One arrow brings down one eagle—settled. He does not let it pass.³ Setchō versifies the place of Hyakujō's question as an osprey and Gohō's answer as an arrow. This mountain monk simply kept praising Gohō and, without noticing, entered mud and water with his whole body.