Denkōroku · PROJECT CASE 25
Simha and the Sword
The Record of the Transmission of the Light
Transmission case
The Twenty-Fourth Ancestor was Venerable Siṃha. He asked the Twenty-Third Ancestor, “I wish to seek the way. How should I apply my mind?” The ancestor said, “If you seek the way, there is nowhere to apply the mind.” The teacher asked, “If there is no application of mind, who performs the work of Buddha?” The ancestor said, “If you apply anything, it is not merit. If you are without doing, that itself is the work of Buddha. A scripture says, ‘I perform meritorious deeds, yet there is no possession of mine.’” When the teacher heard these words, he immediately entered buddha-wisdom.1
Keizan's verse
If you wish to reveal emptiness, do not cover it; Vast emptiness, pure and still, is originally bright.5
Footnotes 5
- 用心 can mean employing or applying the mind, making an effort, directing attention, or taking care. The answer does not commend negligence; it removes any mental operation that would stand apart from the way and possess it. ↩
- This martyrdom, the stream of white milk, the king's severed arm, and his death seven days later are hagiographic signs of Siṃha's purity and the king's karmic retribution. They are reported claims within the lineage narrative. ↩
- The four inversions conventionally mistake impermanent, painful, non-self, and impure phenomena for permanent, pleasurable, self, and pure. The three poisons are greed, hatred, and delusion. The three bodies and four wisdoms describe buddhahood; Keizan's point is that attachment to exalted Buddhist categories must also be relinquished. ↩
- Raining flowers and shaking the earth are conventional miracle signs accompanying authoritative Buddhist teaching. Keizan denies that such displays establish realization. ↩
- The “cover” is the very effort to manufacture or exhibit emptiness. 冲虚 evokes an expansive openness; 淨泊 adds purity and stillness. ↩
About this version and its sources
- Full source citation
- Source heading: 師子尊者. Base: SAT T2585, T2585_.82.0372c21–T2585_.82.0373b20. Project Case 25 corresponds to source ancestral chapter 24.
- Method
- Direct critical-edition translation from the cited received base text. Source claims, hagiography, uncertainty, and unresolved readings remain identified in the notes and project record.
- Editorial uncertainty
- Independent philological and reader review remain pending.
- Rights
- Project translation © Tulsa Zen Center Critical Edition contributors. Source text is cited by edition; redistribution policy requires final organizational approval.
- Revision identifier
- 4510896db65f
Keizan's commentary
The teacher was a man of central India, of the Brahmin caste. He originally studied a non-Buddhist way and possessed broad learning and a powerful memory. Later he met the Twenty-Third Ancestor and had the present exchange. Directly at the place where there is no application of mind, he suddenly entered buddha-wisdom. At that time the Twenty-Third Ancestor abruptly pointed northeast and asked, “What is that sign?” The teacher said, “I see a vapor like a white rainbow piercing heaven and earth. There are also five bands of black vapor stretching across its middle.” The ancestor asked, “What does this omen mean?” The teacher said, “It cannot be known.” The ancestor said, “Fifty years after my extinction, a calamity will arise in northern India and fall upon your body. Even so, you must transmit and maintain my Dharma treasure so that it can guide beings to the furthest limit of the future.” The teacher received this secret prediction and went at once to teach in the country of Kashmir. There he received Vasiṣṭha and told him: “My teacher secretly gave a prediction that a calamity would fall upon my body. It cannot possibly be escaped, and therefore I will remain here. You must uphold my way, go to another country, and expound the teaching.” He entrusted both robe and Dharma to him. At that time the king of Kashmir deeply revered the Buddha-Dharma, yet he remained attached to marked forms. Two non-Buddhist practitioners in that country, one named Māmuta and the other Durācāra, studied magical arts and conspired to cause disorder. They secretly assumed the appearance of Śākyamuni's disciples and slipped into the royal palace, saying among themselves, “If we do not succeed, the blame will fall upon the Buddhists.” When their undertaking failed, the king indeed became enraged. He said, “I have always placed my heart in the Three Treasures. How could they contrive to harm me to this extent?” He ordered monasteries destroyed and the Buddhist community expelled. Then, personally carrying a sword, he went to Venerable Siṃha and asked, “Master, have you attained the emptiness of the aggregates?” The teacher said, “I have attained it.” The king asked, “Have you escaped birth and death?” The teacher said, “I have escaped birth and death.” The king said, “Since you have escaped birth and death, you can give me your head.” The teacher replied, “The body is not my possession. Why should I begrudge the head?” The king swung his blade and severed the teacher's head. White milk surged up several feet high. The king's right arm immediately fell to the ground, and seven days later he died.2 The teacher was like this from beginning to end. When teacher and disciple first met, he began by asking, “I wish to seek the way. How should I apply my mind?” The ancestor answered, “If you seek the way, there is nowhere to apply the mind.” When you truly seek the way, how could the way depend upon applying the mind? Though you die here and are born there, resolving upon the way in place after place and seeking Dharma, you have not yet found its true return because from the outset you have employed this mind. If you wish suddenly to accord with buddha-wisdom, you must not only leave behind the four inversions and the three poisons; you must also leave behind the three bodies and the four wisdoms.3 When you roam and practice in this way, you cannot finally be arranged on the ground of an ordinary being, nor can a buddha-rank be revered and exalted. You pass far beyond the emotional territory of holy and ordinary and swiftly leave discussion and measurement of same and different. Thus it is said that even buddhas and ancestors have difficulty reaching the mysterious and wondrous place. It is not merely that buddhas and ancestors have difficulty reaching it. When this place is discussed from the beginning, buddhas and ancestors finally do not remain. To reach such a ground is the true substance of seeking the way. If you are not yet like this, then even if you rain heavenly flowers, shake the great earth, preach heart and nature, and discourse on the darkly wondrous, you do not glimpse the genuine wondrous way by so much as a hair.4 Therefore, venerable practitioners of Zen, realize this obscure and profound place and clearly understand the matter shouldered by the succession of ancestors. To express a little of this principle, I have as usual a humble verse. Do you wish to hear it?