Changqing and Hofuku on the Tathāgata's Speech

Engo's commentary on the case

Changqing and Hofuku studied under Seppō and regularly challenged and discussed with each other. “Arhat” means “slayer of thieves,” one who has cut off eighty-one grades of affliction, exhausted outflows, and established pure conduct. The three poisons are greed, anger, and delusion. Changqing would rather contradict this than say the Tathāgata has divided speech. His point is that the Tathāgata has no untruthful speech. The Lotus Sūtra says, “Only this one affair is real; the other two are not true,” and “There is only the one vehicle, neither two nor three.” Across hundreds of assemblies, the Buddha taught according to capacities, giving medicine to disease in thousands of ways, yet ultimately without two kinds of speech. But though Changqing says the Buddha expounds Dharma in one sound, he has not dreamed of the Tathāgata's speech. It resembles talking about food without becoming full. Hofuku sees him lecturing on level ground and asks for the speech itself. Changqing's deafness reply works in a ghost cave. Hofuku calls it secondary, then on receiving the question answers “Go drink tea,” seizing the spearhead. Changqing loses money and incurs punishment. How many Tathāgata speeches are there? See this and both men's defects appear; both deserve blows. Some call Hofuku right and Changqing wrong, following words into gain and loss. Others make Hofuku's tea “first head.” Understood so, even Maitreya's descent will not reveal the ancients' intent. What is wrong with “How could a deaf person hear?” What is right with “Go drink tea?” Such ranking has even less connection. Study the living phrase, not the dead. As with “all over” and “whole body,” there is no place for calculating right and wrong. Viewed with the true eye, neither gains nor loses; precisely there distinguish gain/loss. Neither is intimate or distant; precisely there distinguish them. Changqing should bow to Hofuku because Hofuku's small skill turns like lightning and stars, growing fangs upon fangs and claws upon claws. People interpret first and second and thereby work in dead water. This mechanism cannot be grasped that way. A sleeping dragon does not mirror itself in still water; dead water conceals no dragon. Vast flood and sky-high white waves are where a dragon hides. Thus, where no dragon is, moon and waves are clear, wind still and water calm. Where one is, waves rise without wind—like Hofuku's “Go drink tea.” Setchō has cleared away emotional interpretation. He then names Changqing Huileng and says he is marked at Yumen. Though Changqing is a dragon that passed the Dragon Gate, Hofuku abruptly marks him on the forehead.