The Nan’yō Echū's Stupa

Banshō's commentary on the case

Nan’yō Echū Huizhong of Guangzhai Temple in the Western Capital, after receiving the mind seal, lived in Dangzi Valley on Mount Baiya in Nan’yō. For more than forty years he did not descend beyond the mountain gate. His practice became known in the imperial capital. In the second year of the Shangyuan era under Tang Emperor Suzong, the court ordered palace envoy Sun Chaojin to carry an edict summoning him to the capital. The emperor treated him with the ceremony due a teacher. He first lived in the Western Zen Cloister of Qianfu Temple. When Daizong assumed the throne, he again welcomed Huizhong, installing him at Guangzhai monastery. For sixteen years Huizhong explained the Dharma according to circumstances. On the ninth day of the twelfth month in the tenth year of Dali, he lay on his right side and died. He received the posthumous title Zen Master Dazheng.³ Foguo said, “Many people say the Nan’yō Echū's silence itself was the stupa design. If understood this way, Bodhidharma's lineage is swept entirely from the earth; then a mute person too would know Zen.”⁴ Long ago two monks lived in hermitages and did not see one another for ten days. The upper hermitage master asked, “Where have you been? I have not seen you for many days.” The lower hermitage master said, “Inside my hermitage, constructing a seamless stupa.” The upper master said, “I too want to construct one. May I borrow your design?” The lower master said, “Why did you not say so earlier? Someone has just borrowed it.” Hōgen said, “Now say: did he lend him the design or not?” Banshō says: The Nan’yō Echū said nothing; why did the lower hermitage master instead prop things up by explaining a principle? Setchō said, “Set aside Suzong's failure to understand. Did Danyuan understand? Only the one request, ‘I ask for the stupa design,’ presses all the ancestors of India and this land until they cannot avoid turning south into north. If someone beside me disapproves, come forward. I want to ask you: what is the seamless stupa?” Banshō says: If it is not this, speak. Zen Master Zhenying of Mount Danyuan in Jizhou received ordination or training under Baso and long served as the Nan’yō Echū's attendant. After the Nan’yō Echū transformed, the emperor summoned Danyuan into the palace and raised the earlier question. Danyuan too paused a long time and asked, “Does Your Majesty understand?” The emperor said, “I do not understand.” Danyuan recited: South of Xiang, north of Tan; within, gold fills an entire nation. Beneath the shadowless tree, join the same boat; in the lapis palace there is no spiritual friend. Some versions read “south of the Xiang, north of Tan.” Master Yuanlu of Fushan made it “south of Ox Head, north of Horse Head.” If one obtains the aim and forgets the trap, none is impermissible. Setchō's “cannot avoid turning south into north” refers precisely to this.² A monk asked Daeling of Silla, “What is purity everywhere?” Daeling said, “Cut a jeweled branch: every inch is treasure. Split sandalwood: every piece is fragrant.” Master Zichun of Danxia versified: Heaven and earth are entirely a country of gold; all existence fully displays the pure, wondrous body. Danyuan has “gold fills an entire nation”; Danxia's nation too is gold. Yet he is a thread behind. “Beneath the shadowless tree, join the same boat.” The Outline of the Changes says, “When crossing in one boat, why fear different hearts among Hu and Yue? In lines three and four of the Jian hexagram, different bodies harmonize so that nothing can come between. Compliantly preserving one another resembles being together in one boat. Though upper and lower are different bodies, like Hu and Yue, they are useful for resisting bandits—why fear different hearts?” This speaks of one body and shared life, with benefit and harm in common.⁵ Zen Master Fazhen Yi asked, “Every place is Maitreya, and Sudhana has no gate. Why then say, ‘In the lapis palace there is no spiritual friend’?” Banshō says: Break down the palace, then meet. After that, watch Tendō pick it up before your face and strike your nostrils. Setchō said, “Layer upon layer, sharply distinct; its shadow perfectly round.” This is a phrase that fits the head. Tendō says, “Solitarily revolving, perfectly round.” This too can become a donkey-tethering stake for ten thousand ages. “At the limit of eyesight, lofty and towering”: the buddhas of the three times preserve it as the crown-mark that cannot be seen.⁶ Setchō versified “heaven and earth share one root; the ten thousand things form one body,” and Nansen's pointing to a flower as dreamlike: Seeing, hearing, awareness, and knowing are not separate particulars; mountains and rivers are not viewed within a mirror. In a frosty sky the moon sets, night nearly half gone— who shares the cold reflection in the clear pool? Compare this with Tendō's “The moon sets, the pool empties, the night color deepens.” The ancients had practiced considerably. Later Fojian annotated and broke it open all at once: The seamless stupa is not a shadow; vast, one enters the realm of suchness. The dazzling eye streams lightning; dim and profound, the crown cannot be seen. This too is “At the limit of eyesight, lofty and towering.” Tendō's verse on needle and thread passing through says: Towering blue mountains wear autumn leanness; hair and down fallen away, the old bones remain. This too is “Clouds withdraw, the mountain grows lean, autumn features multiply.” It can be called skin and flesh entirely fallen away, with only one reality remaining. Arriving here, the eight trigrams occupy their correct positions and the breaths of the five phases harmonize. Work, construction, and operation proceed without restriction. Why labor to enter the marketplace and question Sun Bin?⁷ “The body was already within—have you seen it coming?” When Zen Master Tianyi Huai accepted the invitation to Shanshan and entered the monastery, he ascended the hall and said: “For twenty years I have gladly admired this mountain. Today I am delighted that conditions have converged and I have arrived. Before this mountain monk reached this mountain, my body had already reached this mountain. By the time I arrived, Shanshan instead was inside this mountain monk's body.” “The Nan’yō father and son seem to know it.” Wanshi does not dare say they do know; he only says they resemble people who know. Why not approve them fully? He fears failing the Nan’yō Echū and his Dharma son. Why can the buddhas and ancestors of India do nothing about it? In the middle of the road, cast a golden milestone; at the formal meal, serve an iron steamed bun.