Baso's “Zang's Head Is White; Hai's Head Is Black”

Engo's commentary on the case

Long ago in Chengdu, this mountain monk investigated this public case with Zhenjue. Zhenjue said, “You need only examine Baso's first phrase, and naturally you will understand it all at once.” Tell me: did this monk understand how to ask, or not? His question is undeniably profound. The source explains leaving the four propositions through being, nonbeing, not-being, not-nonbeing, not-not-being, and not-not-nonbeing, then cutting off the hundred negations. If you merely construct rational principles, you do not recognize the head of the saying and cannot find its controlling point.² If it were this mountain monk, after Baso spoke I would spread my sitting cloth, bow three times, and see what he said. If Baso had met this monk's question, he should have struck him across the spine with his staff and driven him out, to see whether he awakened. Instead Master Ma kept making entangling vines until this fellow missed before his face and was sent to Zhizang. The monk failed to know that Master Ma deeply discerned the approaching wind and ran muddle-headed to ask Zhizang. Zhizang said, “Why not ask the Reverend?” The monk said, “The Reverend sent me.” Pressed, Zhizang turned without an idle interval: “My head aches today. I cannot explain it. Ask Brother Hai.” Brother Hai said, “At this point I do not understand.” Tell me why one said “headache” and one “do not understand.” Ultimately, what is it? The monk returned and reported it. Baso said, “Zang's head is white; Hai's head is black.” Those who speculate through explanatory routes call it mutual deception. Some say they merely pushed the matter to one another. Others say all three recognized the monk's question and therefore did not answer. All of this is blind striking that puts poison into the ancients' finest flavor of ghee. Baso also said, “When you swallow all the water of the West River in one gulp, I will tell you.” That case is of the same kind. If you understand “Zang's head is white; Hai's head is black,” you understand the West River saying.³ The monk exchanged a shoulder-load of muddle for unease and burdened three venerables with entering mud and water, yet ultimately did not glimpse it. Even so, the three lineage teachers were exposed by a board-carrying fellow. People today make a livelihood on language: “White accords with the bright side; black accords with the dark side.” They drill and calculate, entirely failing to know that one phrase of an ancient cuts off the root of thought. You must look personally within the true pulse before you become stable. Therefore it is said, “With the final phrase one first reaches the secure barrier, occupying the crucial ford and letting neither ordinary nor sage pass.” This matter resembles holding one sword across the gate: deliberate and you lose body and life. It is also said, “Like throwing a sword and brandishing it through empty space, do not discuss whether it reaches.” Understand at the place lucid and open on all eight faces. An ancient says, “You lacquer tub,” or “Wild-fox spirit,” or “Blind fellow.” Tell me: are these the same as or different from one blow and one shout? If you know that a thousand differences and ten thousand distinctions are only one kind, naturally you meet the enemy on all eight faces. Do you want to understand “Zang's head is white; Hai's head is black”? My late teacher Wuzu said, “Mister Enfeoffed Marquis.” Setchō's verse says: “Zang's head is white; Hai's head is black.” What is its intent? Patch-robed monks throughout the world cannot leap free of this little bit. Setchō closes well afterward: even a clear-eyed monk cannot understand. This little news is called an immortal's secret formula not transmitted from father to son. Old Śākyamuni taught a whole era's teachings and at the end singly transmitted the mind-seal, called the diamond-king jeweled sword and the true position. Entangling vines like these were already unavoidable. The ancients exposed only a little edge. One who penetrates gains great freedom; one who does not speak only farther away. “The horse-colt tramples everyone in the world to death.” Prajñātāra in India prophesied to Bodhidharma, and the Daikan Enō later told Huairang that from his line a horse-colt would emerge and trample everyone. Engo says later Jiangxi descendants spread throughout the world and the teacher was called Baso, “Horse Ancestor.”⁴ Simply in “Zang's head is white; Hai's head is black” one sees where he tramples the world. A thousand or ten thousand people cannot bite through this black-and-white phrase. “Rinzai is not yet a barefaced thief.” Rinzai once instructed the assembly, “Upon this lump of red flesh there is a true person without rank, always entering and leaving through the faces of all of you. Those who have not verified it—look! Look!” A monk asked, “What is the true person without rank?” Rinzai descended, grabbed him, and said, “Speak! Speak!” The monk had no words. Rinzai pushed him away and said, “What dry shit-stick is this true person without rank?” When Seppō later heard, he said, “Rinzai greatly resembles a barefaced thief.” Setchō wants to meet Rinzai, but sees Baso's responsive edge as surpassing him: this one is truly the barefaced thief; Rinzai is not yet one.⁵ Setchō then versifies the monk: “Depart from the four propositions and cut off the hundred negations. Above heaven and among humans, I alone know.” Do not make a livelihood in a ghost cave. An ancient said, “The question is in the answer; the answer is in the question.” That is already extraordinary. How do you leave the four propositions and cut off the hundred negations? Setchō says, “I alone can know this matter.” Even the buddhas of the three times cannot see it. Since he alone knows, what do all of you come seeking? Zhenru of Dagui said, “The monk asked this way; Baso answered this way. Depart from the four propositions and cut off the hundred negations: Zhizang and Brother Hai both do not know. Want to understand? Have you not heard: ‘The horse-colt tramples everyone in the world to death’?” The base text glosses 搊 with the fanqie 初尤 and defines it as “to restrain” or “seize.”