Unmon's Exposed Pillar

Banshō's commentary on the case

In the primary record Unmon asked a monk, “An ancient buddha communes with an exposed pillar. Which mechanism is this?” The monk had no words. Unmon said, “Ask me, and I will tell you.” The monk accordingly asked. Unmon said, “One sash-cord costs thirty cash.” The monk asked, “What is ‘one sash-cord costs thirty cash’?” Unmon said, “I will give you a beating.” Answering the earlier question in the monk's place, Unmon said, “Clouds rise over the southern mountain; rain falls on the northern mountain.” Song Jing, who held the Tang title kaifu, was skilled in songs for the jiegu drum. One song says, “Clouds rise over the southern mountain; rain falls on the northern mountain.” Unmon borrowed it.³ It is like his saying, “Bodhisattva Guanyin brings cash to buy a rice cake; when she lowers her hand, originally it is a steamed bun.” It wholly resembles Bokushū's sharp action: “The cup falls to the ground; the saucer breaks into seven pieces.” How could explanatory annotation or discursive understanding be allowed here? Tendō can annotate where annotation cannot reach and discuss where discursive understanding does not arrive. Unmon said, “Every person fully possesses luminosity. When you look, you do not see it—dark and murky.” He also said, “Empty space cannot contain it; the great earth cannot support it.” The Surangama Sutra says, “This seeing and its conditions are all the wondrous, pure, luminous substance of awakening. How could there be within it what is so and what is not so?”⁴ Master Sengzhao's Treatise on Prajna Without Knowing says: Where there is no fixed fit, there is nothing with which it does not fit. Where there is no fixed affirmation, there is nothing that is not affirmed. Because no thing is unaffirmed, it is so yet without a so. Because no thing is unfitted, it fits yet without a fit. Thus the scripture says, “Fully seeing all dharmas, there is nothing seen.” This verse openly relies on one scripture and one treatise. Covertly it points to the interpenetration of person and environment beyond calculation and apart from views. Since the ancient buddha communes with the exposed pillar, naturally clouds rise over the southern mountain and rain falls on the northern mountain. Bees gather flowers and make honey; musk deer eat grass and make fragrance. High and low mountains and waterways together turn the fundamental Dharma wheel. Creatures great and small, scaled and furred, universally manifest the samadhi of the form-body.² Elder Qushila saw a three-foot body that was inexhaustible. Bodhisattva Boundless Body exhausted the upper realms, yet still there was more. These are scriptural images of the Buddha body's immeasurability, not anatomical reports.⁵ There is no time when it does not appear and no place it does not pervade. Therefore Wanshi says, “Bright and clear, wherever one touches, it stands openly manifest.” Banshō said again, “Do you see?” “Blind!”