Ungan's Great Compassion

Banshō's commentary on the case

Li Ao asked Ehu, “What does Great Compassion do with a thousand hands and eyes?” Ehu said, “What does the present emperor do with you?”³ Long ago there was a blind mountain man who sold divinations. After rain, when the roads were muddy, he wore fresh white shoes into the market. Someone asked, “Mountain man, since you cannot see, how is it that mud does not stain your shoes?” The mountain man raised his staff and said, “On the head of the staff there is an eye.” Taking the mountain man as evidence: when one feels for the pillow at night, there is an eye on the hand; while eating, there is an eye on the tongue; when hearing speech and recognizing a person, there is an eye within the ear. When Su Zizhan conversed with a deaf person, they simply wrote characters. Su then laughed and said, “He and I are both unusual people. I use my hand as a mouth; he uses his eyes as ears.” The Buddha taught that the six faculties can function interchangeably. Indeed, this can be trusted without doubt.² In his inscription for the Hall of Great Compassion at Purple Cliff in Luzhou, Hō Wujin quoted the Great Compassion Sutra and the Śūraṅgama Sutra in the greatest detail. I once saw an account saying that Great Compassion was formerly Princess Miaoshan, a story told by heavenly beings to Vinaya Master Daoxuan. Yet the thirty-two responsive forms and ten billion transformation bodies also differ according to what is seen; each account stands upon its own telling.⁴ Tianjue said, “The thousand hands show the multitude of ways to guide the confused and receive beings. The thousand eyes show the breadth of emitting light and illumining darkness. “If there were no sentient beings and no defiling toil, not even one finger would remain—much less a thousand or ten thousand arms. Not even a single blink would be present—much less a thousand or ten thousand eyes.” “All over the body” and “throughout the body”; “why must it?” and “it need not.” They appear to have shallow and deep, but in reality there is neither loss nor gain. Yunju instructed the assembly: “Twenty years ago, when this old monk lived at the Sanfeng hermitage, Xinghua came and said, ‘What about temporarily borrowing one question as shadow-grass?’ At the time my responsive thought was slow and dull; I could not answer. “Because he had brought me such an extraordinary question, I did not dare betray him. At the time he said, ‘It seems the hermitage master cannot answer this. Better that I bow and withdraw.’ “Now, thinking back, at the time I needed only to say, ‘Why must it?’” Banshō says: If it had been allowed to come easily. Later a fundraiser went to Xinghua. Xinghua asked, “When your mountain Reverend lived at Sanfeng hermitage, this old monk once asked him something that he could not answer. Has he answered it yet?” The fundraiser recounted the preceding story. Xinghua said, “After twenty years Yunju could say only, ‘Why must it?’ Xinghua would not have it so. How could that equal saying, ‘It need not’?” Banshō says: Contesting the length of rabbit horns. Sanshō said, “Yunju answered after twenty years, yet he was still half a month behind Xinghua.” Banshō says: Competing over the density of flowers seen in empty vision. A monk asked Juefan, “Do the instructions of these old adepts agree or differ?” Juefan said, “The Buddha had a slow-tongued monk recite ‘broom.’ One day the monk greatly awakened and attained great eloquence. Here you should see the earlier worthies' intention in responding to beings.”⁵ What about Tendō's own side? Tendō says that through one aperture being empty and open, one becomes latticed and open on eight sides. Consider willow ponds and flower embankments, warm sun and mild wind. Where is spring? What shape or configuration does it have? Yet it can respond to things and ride the season, neither lingering nor obstructed, like the moon in the sky turning freely of itself. Tell me: “throughout the body,” “all over the body,” and “reaching behind to feel for the pillow”—who is the person? Within a puppet booth, there must be someone who pulls the guiding strings.⁶ The Śūraṅgama speaks of eighty-four thousand pure precious eyes, eighty-four thousand mudrā arms, and eighty-four thousand cakra heads. After Xinghua fell from a horse and broke his arm, he made a verse: The Bodhisattva of Great Compassion has a thousand hands; what child of a great person does not have them?⁷ Now say: which are the hands and eyes throughout the body? The teacher spread his eye open with his fingers and said, “Cat!”