Jōshū's Ball on Swift Water

Engo's commentary on the case

Doctrinal teachers establish the six consciousnesses as a fundamental basis: mountains, rivers, earth, sun, moon, and stars arise through them. They are vanguard in coming and rearguard in departure. “The three realms are mind only; the myriad dharmas are consciousness only.” On realizing buddha-ground, the eight consciousnesses transform into four wisdoms—what doctrinal teachers call changing the name without changing the substance. Faculty, object, and consciousness form three. Objects do not discriminate; the subtle faculty generates consciousness, and consciousness discloses and distinguishes form. The sixth is mental consciousness. The seventh, manas, grasps reflected affairs and produces bondage. The eighth is ālaya, the storehouse consciousness containing seeds of good and evil.³ The monk knows this teaching. A newborn has the six consciousnesses—eyes see and ears hear—yet has not learned to discriminate the six objects as good and bad, long and short, right and wrong, gain and loss. Students of the Way seek to become again like an infant, unmoved by honor or humiliation, fame or achievement, adverse or favorable conditions. Seeing form as if blind and hearing sound as if deaf, the mind remains unmoved like Mount Sumeru. This is a real place of strength. An ancient said, “Pull the patched robe over the head and all affairs cease; at that time this mountain monk understands nothing.” Yet not one point can deceive such a person: mountains remain mountains, waters remain waters. Without fabrication or calculating thought, activity never stops—like sun and moon crossing empty space. Heaven covers and earth bears without claiming names or merit. Because they are without intentional mind, they nourish things and endure. A person of the Way likewise exercises functioning within nonfunctioning, receiving both adverse and favorable conditions with compassion. Even here ancients scolded complete understanding and profound mystery. One must leap free of the nest. The eighth-stage bodhisattva turns the Dharma wheel in a dust mote through wisdom without contrived effort, freely flowing into the sea of omniscience. A patch-robed monk cannot cling even there: drink tea when meeting tea, eat when meeting food. The upward matter cannot be fixed as either determinate or indeterminate. Shishan Shandao said that a newborn never claims to understand scripture or buddha-nature. Later it learns interpretations and says, “I can, I understand,” unaware that these are adventitious afflictions. “Infant practice” in the sixteen contemplations is praised as an analogy for leaving discrimination, grasping, and rejection. If you say the infant itself is the Way, you misunderstand. Nansen said he knew how to make a livelihood at eighteen; Jōshū that at eighteen he knew how to ruin house and scatter household. Jōshū also said that during twenty years in the south, only the two daily meals involved mixed use of mind. Scriptures describe the subtle edge of consciousness and the arising-mark of streaming flow. Even reaching effortless ground remains within that stream; one must pass beyond its third arising-mark to be freely alive. Asked about another practitioner's understanding, Kyōzan compared it to pouring water from one vessel into another, fit to teach a region. Jōshū's “ball on swift water” is already rolling rapidly; struck on the current, it passes in a blink. The Śūraṅgama compares swift water mistakenly viewed as still; an ancient verse says dharmas flow without fixed stopping and do not know one another. Tōsu's “moment after moment” exactly meets the question. The child's consciousnesses function without contrivance, yet their moments never stop, like a dense current. Tōsu deeply discerned the arriving wind. Ancient students nurtured themselves to what is called “the achievement of nonachievement,” like an infant possessing the six faculties without discriminating six objects. Reaching this, they subdue dragons and tigers and can depart sitting or standing. People now need only let the ten thousand present objects rest at once; why wait for the eighth stage? Even in nonfunctioning, mountains are mountains and waters are waters. Jōshū and Tōsu are adepts, so Setchō says they together discerned the question's source. Tōsu said, “Moment after moment, it flows without stopping.” Do you know where it lands? Setchō's final line makes you look with your own eye: “Its landing place never stops—who knows how to watch?” This is his living phrase. Tell me: where does it land?