Kyōzan Plants His Hoe

Banshō's commentary on the case

Teacher and student accorded in the Way; father and son met the mechanism. The house style of Isan and Kyōzan has been a tortoise-shell mirror for a thousand ages. Isan asked Kyōzan, “Where have you come from?” Could Isan not have known that Kyōzan came from the fields? He extended this question because he wanted to meet Kyōzan. Kyōzan did not fail the questioner and merely said, “I came from the fields.” Tell me: is there a principle of the Buddha-Dharma here or not? Isan entered the tiger's cave still further and asked, “How many people are in the fields?” Kyōzan planted his hoe and stood with hands joined. This was immediately a meeting between patch-robed monks. Gensha said, “Had I seen him at the time, I would at once have trodden down the hoe.” Banshō says: unable to suppress a fine laugh. Zen Master Qing of Touzi versified: Few discerning companions know where Isan questioned; planting it in earth answered him, while buddhas and ancestors sank. Gensha, standing nearby, disapproved and trod it down, sparing the green growth from carrying spring deep. Banshō says: when the grass withers, the hawk's eye is keen. Master Ping of Falun at Nanyue versified: Meeting on a narrow road, there is no time to avoid; planting the hoe, he stands with hands joined. Only after crossing the bridge and walking on the bank does he notice his whole body wet with mud and water. Banshō says: unable to bear looking back in the moonlight. Where these two elders versify, there is only a thousand-foot pine in the cold. Look further: Tendō sends forth a stone bamboo shoot putting out new growth. This verse is like Han Yu's “Biography of Fur Point”: principle and event are both disclosed, real and conventional raised together. At first glance Isan is the old awakened one, and Kyōzan and those below him are the descendants. Within it, however, the matter is not so. A monk asked Chōsa, “Does the original person still become a buddha?” Chōsa said, “You tell me: does the emperor of the Great Tang still cut reeds and mow grass?” Thus we know that mowing thatch is an affair on the side of ministers. “Now, with gratitude, they raise up the family gate.” A thousand-year tree without a shadow; boots today without soles. Presiding over the thousand peaks' moon; robe and bowl, one stream's clouds. All this describes effective descendants succeeding to the family enterprise. Thus ruler and minister, father and son, were not created only by the Caodong house; the Isan-Kyōzan father and son already carried out this command.² Had Isan not pointed it out, they would merely have played all their lives around the gateway of light and shadow, giving off the smell of gruel and rice, following donkeys and trailing horses. What a pity. Therefore Tendō instructs them to remember the turning phrase about mowing thatch on South Mountain, engraving it on bone and inscribing it in flesh, never finishing repayment of the kindness. Fadeng said: The rustic elder returns carrying firewood; he urges his wife to weave through the night. Look how busy the household affairs are— tell me, through whose power do they continue? Ask him; he does not know, and deliberately gives rise to doubt. Alas for people past and present: how many know kindness and virtue? What happens after one knows there is this? One severs an arm without noticing pain and stands in snow without daring to tire. Thus in old age Banshō resides at Cloister for Repaying Kindness.³