Gensha's Three Kinds of Sick Person

Engo's commentary on the case

Only after Gensha had penetrated beyond emotional dust and ideation could he speak this way. Do not merely make an interpretation of blindness, deafness, and muteness; you will never touch it. Do not die inside the phrase. One must understand Gensha's intent. Gensha regularly used this saying. A long-resident monk once asked permission to explain it. Gensha agreed; the monk said farewell and descended. Gensha said, “Not so! Not so!” Hōgen later said he understood the three sick persons only after hearing Jizō recount this. If the monk did not understand, why did Hōgen say so? If he did, why did Gensha deny it? Jizō Guichen asked Gensha how he would receive Guichen, who presently had eyes, ears, nose, and tongue. Gensha stopped. Understanding is not confined to sentences. When a monk later told Unmon, Unmon understood the intent and enacted the bow, jab, recall, and question. The monk had an insight. A real fellow would have overturned the platform at “Bow,” avoiding all the vines. Are Unmon and Gensha the same or different? Their understanding is one. The ancients devised countless expedients, with intent at the hook, speaking bitterly only so each person would clarify this one affair. Wuzu said, “One person can speak but does not understand; one understands but cannot speak. If both come, how will you distinguish them?” Unable to do so, one cannot free others from sticking and binding. Do not settle into literal categories alone. The sayings “Eyes see forms as though blind” and “ears hear sounds as though deaf” describe seeing without being captured by form and hearing without being captured by sound. Only there does one approach Gensha's intent. Do you know where the blind, deaf, and mute fellow lands? Seeing/not seeing, hearing/not hearing, and speaking/not speaking are all swept away; interpretations and calculations vanish. The upward affair may be called truly blind, deaf, and mute only in this deliberately paradoxical rhetoric: without mechanism or expedient. Setchō raises and presses. The laughable is that one called mute is not mute and one called deaf is not deaf; the lamentable is that one plainly not blind is blind and one plainly not deaf is deaf. Lilou, legendary for seeing an autumn hair-tip a hundred paces away, could not find the Yellow Emperor's lost pearl. Only Xiangwang, “Formless,” found it. Thus even Lilou cannot distinguish the true color at this higher move. Music Master Kuang, famed for discerning tones and reportedly hearing ants fight across a mountain, could read military fortune by his strings. Yet Setchō says he cannot know the dark string. Even extraordinary hearing is “deaf” before this subtle sound. Setchō chooses neither figure: “Sit alone beneath an empty window; leaves fall and flowers open in season.” Seeing resembles not seeing, hearing not hearing, speaking not speaking. Eat when hungry and sleep when tired; autumn leaves and spring flowers each have their time. After sweeping everything away, he opens one road: “Do you understand?” Exhausted, he can offer only the holeless iron hammer. Look urgently; deliberate and you miss. Engo raised the whisk: “Do you see?” struck the platform: “Do you hear?” then descended: “Can you speak?”