Kōyō's Wondrous-Winged Bird

Banshō's commentary on the case

Zen Master Qingpou of Mount Kōyō in Yingzhou succeeded Dayang Ming'an. Banshō reports that Ming'an had fifteen disciples who all died before him; later, through Yuanjian of Fushan, the transmission reached Reverend Qing of Touzi. Kōyō was one of the fifteen and an elder Dharma brother of Qing.³ This monk's question resembles the contest between Raudraksha and Sariputra when Jetavana was first established for Anathapindika. Raudraksha manifested a fierce dragon intending to harm Sariputra; Sariputra manifested a Wondrous-Winged Bird, which seized, tore apart, and ate it. Though the dragon is chief among scaled creatures, the Wondrous-Winged feeds precisely upon dragons.⁴ The Sanskrit sagara means “ocean.” Lord Pingyuan, Zhao Sheng, served as chief minister to Kings Huiwen and Xiaocheng of Zhao. His household built a high tower overlooking commoners' homes. A woman of his household laughed at a disabled man below. The man demanded the woman's head, and Lord Pingyuan promised but did not act. When half his retainers left, he killed a prisoner as a substitute. The retainers still did not return. He then had the woman's head cut off and displayed before the tower to verify that it was genuine. Within a year, the retainers assembled again.² This story reports lethal elite violence against both an unnamed prisoner and a woman, mobilized through a disabled man's humiliation. Its role here is to gloss “verification,” not to commend the conduct. This Dongshan household style does not prize personally enacting staff and shout. It requires communication by means coming from the side. Only if this monk's offense is not punished heavily can turning and mutual interchange occur.¹ Do you understand? A rush whip shows shame and is still hard to violate; ground drawn as a prison is not borne to deceive. Official law is like a furnace, the heart like iron; from here Tendō expends drill and hammer. The edict extends throughout the realm, yet the king does not circulate. The “Black Robes” chapter of the Book of Rites quotes the Master: “The king's words are like silk thread; when they issue, they become a cord. The king's words are like a cord; when they issue, they become a great rope. Therefore a great person does not initiate idle speech.”⁵ Sagara emerges from the sea; the Wondrous-Winged assumes authority. Once orders and commands are divided, ruler and minister take their positions. Feng Tang said, “When rulers of antiquity dispatched a general, they knelt and pushed the axle, saying: ‘Within the gate threshold, I govern; beyond the gate threshold, the general governs.’” Wei Zhao explains this as the threshold of the outer city gate.⁵ “Thunder startles him from hibernation” versifies the monk extending his head too far. Without waiting for the Waking of Insects in the second month, he raises the dragon's head early. He does not know that floating clouds about to follow the dragon are cut off by the awesome wind of the Wondrous-Winged, and unawares his head collides with it. Some say, “If the monk's words had not fallen, how could Kōyō's sharp capacity have been displayed?” But the four words “not waiting” and “how could he know” do not fit that reading securely. “Continuous beneath the loom”: this 機 does not mean the mechanism of sharp repartee. It means that beneath the brocade loom there must be the needlework of a skillful woman. The gendered craft image reflects historical divisions of labor; the skill, not gender, carries the analogy.⁶ My late teacher Xueyan once raised: The fine-holed golden needle barely shows its nose; the long-pointed jade thread wondrously passes the barrier. This is the bloodline of the Dongshan house. One not within it does not easily know. A seal facing the mark does not face the wind. Like a seal stamped upon empty space, it displays no pattern. Tradition says Cangjie looked upward at the rounded and curved forms of the Kui constellation and downward at turtle patterns and bird tracks. He gathered their beauties and joined them as writing. Later “tadpole” forms developed into two seal scripts: Grand Historian Zhou under King Xuan of Zhou made large seal, and Qin chief minister Li Si made small seal. Contemporary seal script is called “square-fill.”⁶ Now tell me: does Kōyō still carve and inscribe anything? Bright jade originally has no flaw; carving ornament makes the noble object lose its virtue.