Hōgen's Hairsbreadth

Banshō's commentary on the case

Head Monk Xiu and Hōgen both studied with Jizō and deeply obtained the force of collateral inquiry and mutual polishing. This public case resembles the occasion on which Rector Ze's head of awakening was overturned. Zen Master Xuanze of Baoen in Jinling was asked by Hōgen, “Whom have you met?” Xuanze said, “I met Abbot Qingfeng.” Hōgen asked, “What words did he have?” Xuanze said, “I once asked, ‘What is the student's own self?’ Qingfeng said, ‘The fire-boy comes seeking fire.’” Hōgen asked, “How do you understand it?” Xuanze said, “The cyclical signs bing and ding belong to fire. Bringing fire to seek fire is like bringing the self to seek the self.” Hōgen said, “If you understand it that way, how could it do?” Xuanze said, “I am only like this. I do not know your honored intention.” Hōgen said, “Ask me, and I will tell you.” Xuanze asked, “What is the student's own self?” Hōgen said, “The fire-boy comes seeking fire.” At these words Xuanze suddenly awakened.³ Hōgen had hook and awl in hand. When one went, he sealed him fast; when one stayed, he broke the seal. He broke through Rector Ze's barrier of feeling and drew open Head Monk Xiu's lock of consciousness. The Third Ancestor's Inscription on Trusting the Heart says: The utmost Way is not difficult; it only rejects picking and choosing. Merely do not hate or love, and it is luminously clear. A hairsbreadth of difference, and heaven and earth hang apart. Hōgen took this to question Head Monk Xiu, making a roof tile for knocking at the gate. Ask a thousand people today and all thousand will understand it as a principle; otherwise they will throw it altogether into the realm where nothing matters. Xiu did not fall into deliberation. He merely said, “A hairsbreadth of difference, and heaven and earth hang apart.” This already had considerable depth and composure. Only then did Hōgen refuse it: “If it is like that, how could it do?” This is why he became the source of the Hōgen lineage. At this point Banshō regularly instructs students to divide themselves and look from both sides. In the first section, why does Hōgen reject Xiu for speaking that way? In the later section, why does Hōgen himself speak that way? Between them Xiu says, “I am only like this. What about you, Abbot?” He expects brand-new sun and moon, a separate livelihood. Hōgen does not miss by one filament and says exactly as before, “A hairsbreadth of difference, and heaven and earth hang apart.” Qi of Dongchan said, “Why did Hōgen not approve the head monk's response, yet when Xiu requested instruction again Hōgen simply said the same and Xiu could go? Tell me: where is the error? If you see through it, one may say you have a basis.” Banshō says: if it is like that, how could it do? Thus it is said: It is only the road traveled in former times; when explained to someone, it immediately becomes mistaken. Xiu immediately bowed. Attainment is attainment, but feeling and principle cannot tolerate it. Wuzu Jie, in Hōgen's place, would have struck him across the spine. Banshō says: sure enough, one version supplies Hōgen's words, “Head Monk, you have penetrated.” Banshō says: the two fellows playing with mud balls have both failed to understand. Had Banshō been there when Hōgen said, “If it is like that, how could it do?” I would have said, “I have long heard, Abbot, that you possess this essential mechanism.” Otherwise I would have waved my hand and left. I guarantee it would have cut everything off at once. If you do not believe it, ask Tendō. Tendō's first line breaks open the topic and immediately versifies “A hairsbreadth of difference, and heaven and earth hang apart.” Master Huiyuan of Lushan said: At the root's beginning, whence finally does it arise? Extinction and existence border one another. Once the slightest thing enters a moving object, its form has the momentum of a collapsing mountain. When the Third Ancestor says “rejects,” he has already produced hate and love, yet then says, “Merely do not hate or love, and it is luminously clear.” Everyone, step back and examine yourselves carefully. The Sanskrit samadhi is translated “equal maintaining”: neither sinking nor agitation, evenly maintaining. This can be the standard for ten thousand ages that illuminates inequality. An illustrated explanation in the Essentials of the Book of Documents for Governance gives three meanings for the scale: the cord is what suspends, the beam is what balances, and the authority is the weight. The Surangama Sutra says, “While abiding in samadhi, seeing, the conditions of seeing, and the marks conceived are like flowers in empty space, originally nonexistent. This seeing and its conditions are originally the wondrous, pure, luminous substance of awakening. How could either ‘is’ or ‘is not’ exist within it?”⁴ At this very time, one need not reject selection or leave hate and love. There is not even a hairsbreadth of difference—how could there be a separation of clouds and mud? As for pounds, ounces, zi, and zhu: eight zhu make one zi, three zi make one ounce, and sixteen ounces make one pound. A person with beam and weight in hand receives one pound from you and shifts the weight to balance it; receives one ounce and shifts it to balance that. With an increase or decrease as slight as a zi or zhu, it tips.⁵ Everywhere they say, “Receive the meaning at the hook; do not recognize the fixed star.” The fixed star on the steelyard has no pounds or ounces on it. It resembles the North Star dwelling firmly in its place, while addition and subtraction at the hook are calculated according to the moment. Banshō says: deliberate balance does not equal unintentional imbalance. Thus, on a starless scale one lets another sell freely; on the backgammon board one trusts the dice and wins. Do you understand Hōgen saying, “Head Monk, you have penetrated”? Shift the steelyard weight to the very tip marked “penetrated,” and suddenly it is pressed off and turns a somersault.