Jōshū's Cypress Tree

Banshō's commentary on the case

One day Jōshū ascended the hall and said, “This matter is perfectly clear. Even an immeasurably great person cannot get out of here. “When this old monk went to Isan, a monk asked, ‘What is the ancestral teacher's intent in coming from the West?’ Isan said, ‘Bring me the stool.’ If one is a teacher of the lineage, one must receive people with the matter of one's own portion.” A monk then asked Jōshū, “What is the ancestral teacher's intent in coming from the West?” Jōshū said, “The cypress tree before the courtyard.” The monk said, “Reverend, do not use an object to show people.” Jōshū said, “I do not use an object to show people.” The monk said, “Then what is the ancestral teacher's intent in coming from the West?” Jōshū said, “The cypress tree before the courtyard.”¹ Zen Master Huijue of Guangxiao Monastery east of Yangzhou city went to Hōgen. Hōgen asked, “Where have you recently come from?” Huijue said, “Jōshū.” Hōgen said, “I have heard that Jōshū had the saying about the cypress tree. Is that so?” Huijue said, “No.” Hōgen said, “Travelers everywhere all say that a monk asked, ‘What is the ancestral teacher's intent in coming from the West?’ and Jōshū said, ‘The cypress tree before the courtyard.’ How can you say there was no such saying?” Huijue said, “My late teacher truly never said this. Reverend, please do not slander my late teacher.”² Everywhere Huijue was called “Iron-Beak Jue.” Reverend Shengmo required people first to pass through this story and wash away their knowing and views. He once said, “The three mysteries and five ranks are all within it.” Zen Master Fang of Zhenru awakened through this story and went straight into the abbot's quarters to see Zen Master Jue, Guangzhao of Rōya. Guangzhao asked, “How do you understand it?” Zhenru said, “Last night the bedding was warm; one sleep lasted until dawn.” Guangzhao approved him. Zhenru's awakening to this story was excellent. Tendō's verse on it is also not bad.³ Seven hundred sexagenary cycles—he had experienced many affairs. Thus bank-like brows are crossed with snow. The ancients used brows and eyes as cliff and lightning. Tendō uses the old “river eyes, sea mouth” expressions to make a four-line verse, as though one saw the living Jōshū pointing to the cypress. Brows like a bank of reed flowers; eyes blue as autumn water. An old line says: Wild water clearer than a monk's eyes, blue; distant mountains dense as a buddha's head, dark green. “Sea-mouth drums waves; ship-tongue rides the current.” Waves can overturn a ship; a ship can ride the waves. One word can cause a state to flourish; one word can cause a state to perish. Therefore Wanshi follows with “the hand that settles disorder, the strategy for peace.” This is political efficacy rhetoric, not a claim that Zen speech should govern states.⁴ Jōshū once said, “Sometimes I take one blade of grass and use it as a sixteen-foot golden body. Sometimes I take a sixteen-foot golden body and use it as one blade of grass.” This cypress story originally resolved people's doubts. Yet today, how many people doubt because of it? Did Jōshū intend to stir up the communities? People see that when Jōshū was asked, he answered immediately, as though without relying on effort. Tendō alone knew Jōshū's saying: “Eighty years traveling on foot; a three-year-old child surpasses me, and I learn from the child.” This is constructed in leisure and used in urgency. A person who has not undergone bitter effort does not know.⁵ Wolun said: Wolun has a skill: he can sever a hundred thoughts. Facing objects, mind does not arise; awakening grows day after day. The Sixth Ancestor said: Huineng has no skill: he does not sever a hundred thoughts. Facing objects, mental events repeatedly arise; how could awakening grow?⁶ Seen this way, what about the affair of filling valleys and blocking ditches? Today it is thrown into West Lake. Loaded with the pure wind, to whom will it be entrusted?