Yakusan Shoots the Stag of Stags

Engo's commentary on the case

In the Dongshan house this is called a “question borrowing an affair” and also a “question discerning the host,” used to clarify the mechanism at the moment. Ordinary deer are easy to shoot; only the stag among stags, king of the deer, is difficult. It sharpens its horns on cliffs and protects the herd so even a tiger cannot approach. The monk appears alert and uses this to ask Yakusan about the first mechanism. Yakusan's “Watch the arrow!” is exceptional, like fire struck from stone or lightning. Shigong similarly received Sanping by drawing an imaginary bow. Sanping opened his chest and asked whether it was a killing or life-giving arrow. Shigong plucked the string three times; Sanping bowed. Shigong said that after thirty years with one bow and two arrows he had shot only half a sage, then broke the equipment. Later Dadian challenged Sanping: if it was life-giving, why distinguish it on the bowstring? Sanping had no words. Fadeng's verse says Shigong sat with bow and arrows for thirty years without one who knew the sound; when Sanping reached the target, father and son accorded—yet on reflection Sanping himself was the target. Shigong's strategy matches Yakusan's. Here the monk plays the stag and falls. He resembles an adept but has a head and no tail. He made a snare for Yakusan, but Yakusan kept pressing: “Drag out this dead fellow.” The monk's running is good, yet not cleanly free—his hands and feet still stick. Thus Yakusan calls him a mud-player. Without that last phrase Yakusan would have been criticized for ages. Did the monk understand? If so, why did Yakusan condemn him? This resembles other “tiger-trap” cases where a monk announces a teacher's head has fallen after the teacher extends his neck. Yakusan recognizes the device and refuses to follow its script. Setchō says the monk was alive for three steps but would die at five. If he had leapt alive beyond five, no one under heaven could have handled him. When adepts meet, guest and host must interchange without interruption from beginning to end. The monk could not sustain that, so Setchō checks him. A patch-robed monk must possess the eyes, horns, mechanisms, and strategy of the stag among stags. Even a winged, horned tiger must withdraw its whole body from harm. When the monk fell, he declared by action, “I am the stag.” Yakusan said “Drag out this dead fellow,” and the monk ran. That was good, but only three steps. If alive at five, he could lead a herd to chase the tiger. The king stag's spear-sharp horns make tigers flee; it leads the deer to drive them into another mountain. Setchō then verses Yakusan's own way of emerging at the moment: “The true eye has always been entrusted to the hunter.” Yakusan is the capable hunter and the monk the stag. While teaching, Setchō raised this case, bound it into one compact statement, and shouted, “Watch the arrow!” Everyone sitting and standing was unable to rise.