Hyakujō's Wild Fox

Banshō's commentary on the case

Whenever Zen Master Dazhi of Mount Hyakujō in Hongzhou ascended the seat, an old man regularly listened to the Dharma. He had once lived on this mountain in the time of Kasyapa Buddha. Because he wrongly answered a student's turning phrase, he had remained in a wild fox's body until now.³ This came from leaning against walls and clinging to partitions himself, then sending another person tumbling into a pit. Seeing that Dazhi had methods for pulling nails and extracting wedges, he abandoned his own view and followed him, asking Dazhi to give a turning phrase in his place. Dazhi exercised fearless eloquence and lightly turned it around: “He does not obscure cause and effect.” At these words the old man greatly awakened. To speak according to the facts, “does not fall under cause and effect” is the annihilationist view that sweeps causality away as nonexistent. “Does not obscure cause and effect” finds the subtlety while following the current. Anyone with a slight understanding of the doctrinal teachings sees it as soon as it is raised. Still, though the old man shed his fur garment, he continued to wear scales and armor. Zen Master Daoyuan was in Master Nan's assembly when he heard two monks raise this story. One said, “Even ‘not obscuring cause and effect’ still has not enabled him to escape the wild-fox body.” The other immediately replied, “If he simply did not fall under cause and effect, how could he ever have fallen into a wild-fox body?” Daoyuan was startled by the remark and found it extraordinary. He hurried up to the Jicui Hermitage at Ōbaku. While crossing a mountain stream, he suddenly awakened. When he met Master Nan and related the event, before finishing, tears covered his cheeks. Nan ordered him to sleep warmly on the attendant's couch. Daoyuan suddenly rose and made a verse: Not falling, not obscuring— monks and laypeople originally have no taboo. A man's bearing is like a king's; how could he accept being bagged, covered, and concealed? One chestnut staff moves freely across and along; a wild fox leaps into the company of golden-haired lions. Master Nan laughed loudly. Seen this way, when the old man originally said, “Now I ask you, Abbot, to give a turning phrase in my place,” he delighted only in saying “does not fall under cause and effect,” so that beginners would not fall into the pitfall of interpretation. That evening Hyakujō ascended the hall and raised the preceding circumstances. Ōbaku asked, “The man of old wrongly answered one turning phrase and fell into a wild-fox body for five hundred lives. If at every turn he had answered without error, what should have happened?” Hyakujō said, “Come closer and I will tell you.” Ōbaku approached and slapped Hyakujō. Hyakujō clapped and laughed: “I had thought only that a barbarian's beard was red; here is another red-bearded barbarian.” Kyōzan said, “Hyakujō obtained great capacity; Ōbaku obtained great function. Their reputations were not gained in vain.” Isan raised this and asked Kyōzan, “Ōbaku regularly used this capacity. Was it innate, or did he obtain it from someone?” Kyōzan said, “He both received it through a teacher's transmission and penetrated the source through his own nature.” Isan said, “So it is, so it is.” Look at Hyakujō and his son traveling without fear, like lion kings. How could they make their living in a wild fox's den? Banshō has already exposed his tailbone still further; now let Tendō sport with claws and fangs. Set up cultivation and realization, distinguish cause and effect: one foot of water, ten feet of wave, and one falls among wild-fox spirits for five hundred lives. Even though the two monks below Jicui Hermitage had eloquence surpassing the crowd, when examined they could not avoid crashing into the nest of entangling vines. Two characters in Tendō's line are not quite secure. Why did he not say, “crashes as before into the wild-fox den”? “Ah, ha, ha!” This verse makes Hyakujō's place of awakening clear. Tendō exposes his own breast and says, “Do you understand?” Just ask whether Tendō himself understands. “If you are cleanly free and unbound, I may freely go ‘to-to, wa-wa.’” Fortunately there is a patch of shade; why labor without benefiting people? “To-to, wa-wa” is the indistinct speech of an infant. The Annotations on the Words and Phrases of the Lotus Sutra also says: “to-to” is the appearance of learning to walk; “po-ho” is the sound of practicing speech. The Nirvana Sutra has the practice of illness and the practice of an infant. Some editions read “po-po, ho-ho.”⁴ Zen Master Shandao of Shishi said, “Among the sixteen practices of nirvana, the practice of an infant is foremost.” The moment of “to-to, wa-wa” illustrates a student of the Way leaving behind the discriminating mind of grasping and rejecting. It has the same intent as the spirit songs and shrine dances below. Tell me: what melody is this? With a mind, one cannot hear the myriad sounds; the earless lone crag instead knows the music.⁵