Tōzan Offers to Ungan's Portrait

Banshō's commentary on the case

When Tōzan took leave of Ungan, he asked, “After the Reverend's death, if someone asks whether I can depict the teacher's true likeness, how should I respond?” After a long pause Ungan said, “Just this is.” Tōzan sank into thought. Ungan said, “Acarya Jia, in taking responsibility for this great matter, you must be exceedingly careful.” Tōzan said nothing and left. Later, while crossing water, he saw his reflection and only then awakened thoroughly.³ He made a verse: By all means avoid seeking from another, for then it is far distant from me. Now I travel alone of myself, yet everywhere I meet him. He is now truly me; I am not now him. One must understand in this way to accord with suchness.¹ While in the assembly, Tōzan made offerings to Ungan's portrait and raised the preceding story of depicting the likeness. A monk asked, “What is the intent of Ungan's saying, ‘Just this is’?” Tōzan said, “At the time, I nearly misunderstood my late teacher's intent.” If one takes understanding from the pause and “Just this is,” one is precisely an interpreter speaking under a substitute name. Therefore Tōzan saw the shadow and knew the form, yet awakened only while crossing the water. The monk asked, “Did Ungan know there is, or not?” If one says he always knew there is, he becomes merely a person standing beside it. Have you not heard, “Only one who knows there is begins to know how to value it”? If one says he always did not know there is, danger lies here. There is complete not-knowing-there-is; there is knowing-there-is and then not knowing-there-is; there is going through not-knowing-there-is and completing knowing-there-is.⁴ Tōzan said, “If he did not know there is, how could he know how to say this? If he knew there is, how could he be willing to say this?” The Huayan school says, “Principle is complete; words are partial. When words arise, principle is lost.” Here mystery is doubled and subtlety renewed, including and harmoniously penetrating: a bloodline neither one-sided nor withered, without seepage or leakage. At the end of the Tang Dazhong era, Tōzan first lived at Baiji in Xinfeng. Later he moved to Mount Dong in Gao'an, Yuzhang, becoming its first-generation teacher. Once, while holding a memorial feast for Ungan, a monk asked, “What instruction did the teacher receive from your late teacher?” Tōzan said, “Though I was there with him, I did not receive his instruction.” The monk asked, “Then why hold the feast?” Tōzan said, “Although so, how would I dare turn my back on him?” The monk asked, “Reverend, your career began with Nansen. Why do you instead hold a feast for Ungan?” Tōzan said, “I do not esteem my late teacher's virtue or Buddha-Dharma. I esteem only that he did not explain it through for me.” The monk asked, “In succeeding your late teacher, do you approve him or not?” Tōzan said, “I half approve and half do not approve.” The monk asked, “Why do you not approve completely?” Tōzan said, “If I approved completely, I would betray my late teacher.”² Banshō says: Ungan spent twenty years with Hyakujō but succeeded Yakusan. Tōzan's career began with Nansen, but he succeeded Ungan. Different seedlings became still more luxuriant, secretly securing the numinous root. With Fuyō the lineage revived; by Tendō its pattern was fully prepared. What is it that possesses the pattern? Tōzan entrusted Sōzan, saying, “From my late teacher Ungan I personally received the seal of the Precious Mirror Samadhi. It exhausts the matter and reaches the essential point. I now transmit it to you; preserve it well.”⁵ “The precious mirror, clear and bright, tests upright and partial.” Are not the rooster singing in the family grove and the crane aging with cloud and pine tests of upright and partial? Though a mirror is bright, it has front and back. Only when the jade loom turns sideways do the threads pattern one another in succession. This is the method of mutual interchange, double brightness, double darkness, and combined arrival. The “Appended Statements” of the Book of Changes says, “When the Way is exhausted, it changes. Changing, it penetrates. Penetrating, it endures.” Tōzan father and son walked by compass and stepped by square. That their house style flourishes greatly to this day—is this not the effect of a deep source and long flow?⁶