Hekiganroku / Biyan lu · CASE 91
Enkan's Rhinoceros-Horn Fan
The Blue Cliff Record
Engo's pointer
Transcend emotion and leave views; remove bonds and free what sticks. Raise the upward lineage vehicle and uphold the treasury of the true Dharma eye. One must respond throughout the ten directions and be lucid on all eight sides. At this field, is there anyone who attains and realizes, dies and lives, together?
Case
One day Enkan called his attendant: “Bring me the rhinoceros-horn fan.” The attendant said, “The fan is broken.” Enkan said, “Since the fan is broken, return my little rhinoceros.” The attendant had no reply. Tōsu said, “I do not refuse to bring it out, but fear its head and horns will be incomplete.” Setchō said, “I want the head and horns that are incomplete.” Sekisō said, “If I returned it to you, Reverend, you would have none.” Setchō said, “The rhinoceros is still here.” Shifuku drew a circle and wrote the character “ox” inside. Setchō said, “Why did you not bring it out just now?” Hofuku said, “You are advanced in years, Reverend. Better ask someone else.” Setchō said, “A pity—labor without achievement.”
Setchō's verse
The rhinoceros-horn fan was used for a long time. Question them, and none originally knows. Boundless clear breeze together with head and horns All depart like cloud and rain, hard to pursue. Setchō added, “If you want the clear breeze restored and horns reborn— “—each Zen traveler, supply a turning phrase.” He asked, “The fan is broken. Return my rhinoceros.” A monk came forward: “Assembly, go to the monks' hall.” Setchō shouted, “I cast the hook for a kun-fish and whale, and caught a toad!” Then he left the seat.
About this version and its sources
- Full source citation
- Editorial title: 鹽官犀牛扇子. Base: CBETA T2003, T48n2003_p0215b26–p0216b13. Angle brackets represent inline notes.
- Method
- Direct critical-edition translation from the cited received base text. Source claims, hagiography, uncertainty, and unresolved readings remain identified in the notes and project record.
- Editorial uncertainty
- Independent philological and reader review remain pending.
- Rights
- Project translation © Tulsa Zen Center Critical Edition contributors. Source text is cited by edition; redistribution policy requires final organizational approval.
- Revision identifier
- f2d9ed2e1909
Engo's commentary on the case
Though this affair is not in words, words disclose it and test a person's lifelong spirit and strategy—whether on the last day one can act as host, unmoved when ten thousand objects collide: achievement without achievement, strength without strength. Enkan was Zen Master Qian. Engo says ancient people made fans from rhinoceros horn. Enkan knew the fan was broken; he asked to test whether the attendant knew where the matter landed. Tōsu fears incomplete horns; Setchō requests precisely those. Sekisō says return would leave Enkan without it; Setchō says the rhinoceros remains. Shifuku, an heir of Kyōzan who often used scenes to receive people, draws his circle; Setchō pierces his nostrils by asking why it was not produced earlier. Hofuku's answer is steadier and has distant intent. Engo once understood it as saying Enkan was senile—first asking for the fan, now forgetting and asking for the animal—making service difficult. Setchō nevertheless calls it labor without achievement. These are formats for supplying responses. Each ancient, seeing through the affair, speaks differently yet hits the target. Each phrase needs a road of emergence and must not lose the blood-pulse. Modern people merely calculate reasons; sustained investigation must freeze each dripping drop and seek realization. Everyone has the fan and receives its power at all times; why does questioning produce no knowledge? Attendant, Tōsu, and Hofuku all “do not know.” Does Setchō? When Wuzhuo visited Mañjuśrī, the bodhisattva raised a crystal cup: “Do they have this in the south?” Wuzhuo said no. “What do they ordinarily use for tea?” Wuzhuo had no words. Know where that case lands and you know the fan's boundless breeze and see its towering horns. The four elders' sayings depart like morning cloud and evening rain. Setchō therefore requests turning phrases. The monk's order to the assembly seizes the host's authority and says a great deal, but only eighty percent. At one hundred he would overturn the platform. Does he understand the rhinoceros? If not, how could he answer so? If so, why does Setchō reject him as a toad caught while fishing for leviathan? Pick it up and examine it.