Enkan's Rhinoceros Fan

Banshō's commentary on the case

Zen Master Qian of Zhen'guo Haichang Cloister in Enkan County, Kōshū, was originally a branch of the Tang imperial house. While Emperor Xuanzong was still in obscurity, he lived as a monk and was about to visit the master. The master knew in advance and told the administrator strictly to prohibit miscellaneous talk and merely regulate disruptive affairs. After the future emperor had stayed a long time, he suddenly took his leave. The master privately told him, “The time has arrived. Do not remain a dragon coiled in mud,” and further entrusted him with later affairs of the Buddha-Dharma. After Emperor Wuzong suppressed the teaching for six years, Xuanzong restored it, and the master contributed powerfully. The emperor planned to summon him to the palace and make offerings, but the master had long since died. Grieving, the emperor posthumously titled him Zen Master Wukong.³ One day the master called his attendant: “Pass me the rhinoceros fan.” The attendant said, “The fan is broken.” This too was plain conversation between father and son. The master said, “Since the fan is broken, return the little rhinoceros to me.” This was an occasion of entering the weeds with his whole body to raise a child. The attendant had no reply. By following what was crooked he had struck what was straight, but did not himself know he possessed it. Touzi answered in his place, “I do not refuse to bring it out, but I fear its head and horns will not be complete.” Banshō says: skilled at repair. Setchō commented, “I want the head and horns that are incomplete.” Banshō says: that is an old object of our house. Shishuang said, “If I return it to you, Abbot, then it will be absent.” Banshō says: denying it to his face. Setchō commented, “The little rhinoceros is still here.” Banshō says: a bright eye is hard to deceive. Hofuku said, “Abbot, you are advanced in years; it would be good to ask someone else.” Banshō says: much kindness, deep resentment. Setchō commented, “What a pity—labor without achievement.” Banshō says: a good heart receives no good reward. Judging this band of old fellows, they speak principles emptily; in the end they cannot bring out either fan or rhinoceros. Only Shifuku drew a circle and wrote the character “ox” inside it. Fan and rhinoceros were entirely new and had not moved. Setchō commented, “Why did he not bring it out a moment ago?” In fact, when the attendant said, “The fan is broken,” how had it been moved by even a fraction? Not bringing it out earlier, how had it been diminished? Bringing it out now, how had it been increased? Tendō appreciates that Shifuku could bring it out and use it intimately. He posted his name and issued an invitation, especially brewing and serving him tea once. Everywhere they say the fan showed a rhinoceros viewing the moon. Some say the fan was made from rhinoceros horn; others that a rhinoceros was used as its handle. Each can give it the name “rhinoceros fan.”² At the time Enkan opened a shop, and each person brought out one handle. Shifuku alone made a new model with his own hand, wholly and particularly different. The master once instructed the assembly, “If you see Shifuku's monastery banner from across the river and then turn back, you deserve thirty blows beneath your heels—how much more if you cross the river and come.” At that moment a monk had barely stepped out when the master said, “You are not fit to converse with.” In general, the lecture hall values speaking it through; the source-gate values using it through. The character inside the curving enclosure has the greatest source. Gensha instructed the assembly, “The statement ‘I possess the treasury of the true Dharma eye and entrust it to Mahakasyapa' resembles drawing the moon. Caoqi's raising the whisk resembles pointing to the moon.” The cassia hub is the moon. In the Nirvana Sutra the World-Honored One emits moon-loving light, and King Ajatasatru's fevered affliction becomes cool.⁴ Thus it says, “Who knows the thousand-year spirit of the cassia hub? Wonderfully it forms one transparent, luminous point of autumn.” It may be said: if the great handle is in hand, a clear breeze always reaches the body. The rhinoceros-fan story has received more comments and verses than most, but in the end they have not genuinely met Enkan. Had Banshō been the attendant when Enkan said, “Pass me the rhinoceros fan,” whatever there was—feather, cattail, paper, bamboo, damask, silk, palm, or bovine material—he would casually have picked it up and handed over one fan. Why? Though there are a thousand kinds of ingenuity, in the end there are not two kinds of wind.⁵