Unmon's Mount Sumeru

Banshō's commentary on the case

National Teacher Shan of Yuantong said, “Everywhere this public case is discussed. Some say that as soon as the monk asked this way he had already raised a thought, and his fault was as great as Mount Sumeru. Some say he was like Mount Sumeru, unmoved by the eight winds and abiding peacefully through a thousand ages. Some say it is as difficult for people to penetrate as Mount Sumeru.” Discussion of this kind still has not understood Unmon's intention. Only when the bottom falls out of the bucket and the red thread snaps does one know that it is altogether not like that.³ Have you not heard: Three phrases clarify one; one phrase clarifies three. Three and one do not involve each other: clearly, the road beyond. Foguo said, “Unmon's replies often provoke people's discriminating consciousness.” Banshō says: unless one possesses great methods for working with people, one cannot correspond by dispatching discriminating consciousness with discriminating consciousness. This Mount Sumeru cannot be covered by heaven or supported by earth. Wind does not enter it; water does not wet it. Only an adamantine eye looks once and sees through it. It immediately appears pierced seven times and punctured eight, shattered into fine dust. Then, upon one's eyebrows and lashes, it stands solitary, sheer, and towering. Zen Master Duan of Baiyun versified: Mount Sumeru fills the cosmos; thousand-handed Great Compassion cannot see through it. Unless you know for yourself how to ride an ox backward, your whole life you will never cease following others. Banshō says: facing upward, alone raise the brows; turning the head, clap the hands yourself. Abbot Zhi of Qishan versified: With no affair, he seeks a criminal charge from another; seized immediately, he loses his whole body. Before confessing the facts, those who hurry and scurry— who knows how many stand outside the gate? Only Tendō is not confined by this. You ask me whether not giving rise to a single thought has fault or no fault; I immediately bring out one whole Mount Sumeru before your face. The benefit of this Dharma gift is certainly not stingy. Yongjia said, “The gate of great generosity opens without obstruction.” This is not only true today. The Sanskrit Sumeru is translated “Wondrously High.” Composed of four jewels, it is wondrous; rising alone above the other peaks, it is high. Among the mountains of the four continents, Sumeru is foremost.⁴ If you consent for yourself, I entrust it to you with both hands. An old poem says, “When his heart consents is when my destiny opens.” In fact, this matter is always exposed, rugged and towering like Mount Sumeru. Who can cover it? Before it is entrusted, do you lack a share? When it is entrusted to you, have you newly obtained it? Have you not heard Changqing say: Amid the myriad forms, the body alone is exposed; only when a person consents for himself does it become intimate. Tendō's verse reaches this point with great skill in containment. If deliberation does not cease, from a thousand or ten thousand miles away you gaze upward and cannot reach it. Quyuan said, “This matter is like a cliff collapsing and rocks splitting, a wall standing a thousand fathoms high, impossible to climb or grasp.” In fact, you have never left it, and I have never taken it from you. This is the reverse of delusion and awakening in the preceding line; the couplet is clear. The teachings say Mount Sumeru extends eighty thousand yojanas below the water and eighty thousand above. Only the Sagara Ocean can contain it. As the mountain has remained unmoved from antiquity to the present, clouds too appear and disappear, always at leisure.⁴ Dongshan said: The blue mountain is father to the white cloud; the white cloud is child to the blue mountain. All day the white cloud leans against it; the blue mountain never knows. With talent to spare, Tendō versifies Mount Sumeru through the sea's vastness and the clouds' leisure, exhausting the imagery's subtlety. Can this place contain the arising and extinction of one thought? Thus he says, “The blue sea is vast. White clouds are at leisure. Do not place even a hair between them.” This studies alongside Setchō's saying that one cannot place sand in the eye. Yet if we discuss Shaoyang's unstinting Dharma gift, his eye can instead contain Mount Sumeru. Throughout this Sumeru verse, each impact connects; its bloodline runs through and every beat is the command. It does not arbitrarily bore interpretations and increase discriminating consciousness. In fact, how could someone who does not give rise to a single thought still ask about fault or no fault? Even if one constantly remains where no thought arises, examine it: what is it fit to do? Thus it says, “A counterfeit cockcrow cannot deceive me. I will not carelessly let one through the pass.” Lord Mengchang entered Qin to serve as chief minister. Someone warned the king that because Mengchang was worthy and belonged to the ruling house of Qi, he would put Qi before Qin and endanger Qin. The king imprisoned him and intended to kill him. Mengchang sought release through the king's favored consort. She asked for his white fox-fur coat, but he had already presented it to the king. A low-ranking retainer skilled at stealing like a dog recovered the coat and gave it to her. Mengchang escaped and reached Hangu Pass at midnight. The law opened the gate only at cockcrow. A retainer skilled at imitating a cock crowed; all the cocks answered, and Mengchang escaped Qin.⁵ Banshō raised his staff and said, “Today Banshō guards the pass. Anyone who has learned to crow like a cock—come forward.” Then he leaned the staff back and said, “I let one move pass.”