Kempō's One Stroke

Banshō's commentary on the case

A monk asked Zen Master Kempō of Kempō, “The Bhagavats of the ten directions have one road, the gate of nirvāṇa. Where is the roadhead?” This question originally comes from fascicle five of the Śūraṅgama Sutra: “This is the abhidharma; the Bhagavats of the ten directions have one road, the gate of nirvāṇa.” Where are its roadhead and entrance? Explained according to scripture, the Tathāgata himself says this to prepare the basis for perfect penetration. In fascicle six Mañjuśrī then selects among the modes of perfect penetration.³ On the patch-robed monk's side, Tendō once said: In the ten directions there are no walls; from the beginning, no barriers at all. On four sides there is likewise no gate; this very place is the entrance. Therefore Kempō drew one stroke and said, “It is here.” Those who do not understand often call this Kempō pointing out the road to the monk. Otherwise they say he drew a line cutting the monk off so that he could roam no farther. It is certainly neither interpretation. Do you not see that Unmon annotated it with eight measures of rice and nine of bran? Nan of Huanglong said, “For a time Kempō pointed out the road, bending down for a beginner. Unmon then penetrated its transformations, keeping later people from becoming weary.” Banshō says: If the waves of Sōkei are like this, limitless innocent people drown on dry land. Unmon had spent a long time with Kempō, Sōzan, and Sozan. This monk assumed Unmon must know how Kempō functioned, and therefore asked for instruction. Had Unmon reused Kempō's needle and thread, it would have been a post for tethering a donkey. Instead he suddenly brought out Bokushū's Qin-era axle drill. At once the cup falls to the ground and the saucer breaks into seven pieces.⁴ The monk did not understand Kempō's intent, so Unmon gave him another live road. It greatly resembles pouring oil on a fire to save it, or fanning wind to melt ice. Zhu'an had already exposed it in verse: Kempō need not point it out; Unmon, stop rummaging among antiques. Naturally the carp of the Eastern Sea strikes against Indra's nostril. Zhu'an is even more excessively compassionate than Unmon: the more he explains, the harder people find it. Better Tendō, whose cold eye admits no defense and is somewhat more exact. Kempō doctors a dead horse but cannot cure it. This monk is already someone who has lost body and life. Unmon obtained soul-returning incense, able to make the already dead revive. The Traditions of Gleanings says that in the first year of the Han Yanhe era, the Yuezhi kingdom of the western Hu—“Yuezhi” pronounced zhi—sent envoys presenting four ounces of incense. Each piece was as large as a sparrow's egg and the color of a mulberry. By the first year of Shiyuan, a great epidemic struck the capital and more than half the population died. The emperor burned the incense, and all who had been dead fewer than three days revived. Its fragrance did not cease for three months. The incense supposedly came from Human-Bird Mountain on Juku Continent. Its tree resembled a maple and could be smelled several li away. Called the soul-returning tree, its root was cut and its sap boiled in a jade cauldron until black and sticky. It was also called Startle-the-Vital-Soul, Return-to-Life, Zhentan, and Repel-Death.² In a brief address Tendō said, “Completely obtain soul-returning incense, then come alike to beat the poison-smeared drum.” Unmon produced one entangling complication. Tendō calls it soul-returning incense; the various regions turn it into a poison-smeared drum. They directly prevent one from turning the body or exhaling, block the throat, stop the nostrils, and make the hundred parts of the body run with sweat.⁵ Master Zhigong said, “Suddenly awakening that original nature is fundamentally empty is just like a fever breaking in sweat.” Even so, how many hairs are there in Banshō's eyebrows?