Dōgo Tends the Sick

Banshō's commentary on the case

Zen Master Lingyou of Isan in Tanzhou went to study with Great Wisdom Hyakujō at age twenty-three and served as cook for twenty years. He awakened while raking a fire. Later he competed with Hualin in giving a reply about a water pitcher and thereby won appointment to Isan. Regional commissioner Li Jingrang memorialized the throne to have the temple titled Tongqing. Chancellor Pei Xiu once consulted him about the mysterious essential.³ The teacher once saw a wildfire and asked Dōgo, “Do you see the fire?” Dōgo said, “I see it.” Isan asked, “Where does it arise?” Dōgo said, “Apart from walking, standing, sitting, and lying, I ask the teacher to pose another question.” Isan stopped. Fojian commented, “Everyone sees the blazing wildfire; Dōgo alone saw it in an utterly different way.” Banshō says: It is equally a matter of tending illness, but no one equals Dōgo in seeing through heart, liver, and all five organs. Isan understood skillful means: he beat the time according to the seating and said, “Even if you say it, there is no connection.” Only Tendō says that the place of no connection is precisely a good place to speak. The red-thread pulse is cut; medicine and illness both vanish. Taking medicine, one has forgotten the mouth; diagnosing the pulse, one has forgotten the hand. This is the so-called illness that cannot be gathered together. Hua Tuo folds his hands; Bian Que knits his brow.² Say it exists: throughout the body it has no image or form. Say it does not exist: throughout the whole world it has never been hidden. During the Qi dynasty, Dharma Master Tanluan obtained ten scrolls of scriptures on immortality. Later he met Tripitaka Master Bodhiruci and asked, “Within the Buddha Dharma is there a method of long life without death superior to this land's formulas for immortality?” The Tripitaka master spat on the ground and said, “How could this land have a method of long life? Even if the years are extended, when the karmic result is exhausted one still falls.” He drew the Sutra on Contemplation of the Buddha of Immeasurable Life from his robe and gave it to Tanluan, saying, “This is the great formula of immortality: constantly obtaining liberation and forever escaping birth and death.”⁴ The ten kinds of immortals in the Surangama Sutra, when their karmic results end, return and turn among the various destinies. Laozi said, “To die without perishing is longevity.” Dongpo's poem presented to Foyin says: I have no leisure yet to study long life; for now I study how long not to die. “Entirely beyond the time before Buddha Majestic Voice”: before heaven, not yet formed, it is already formed. “Walking alone after the empty kalpa”: after heaven is destroyed, it is not destroyed. When settled and even, heaven covers and earth supports. When revolving in function, the crow flies and the rabbit runs. This is called whole-body function and gathering function back into the body. Stillness is the root of heaven and earth; movement accords with the minds of sages and worthies. Do you understand speech of this kind? Open the wondrous, pure, perfectly bright eye; recognize the auspicious person of peace and ease.