Nansen's Peony

Banshō's commentary on the case

Lu Gen of the Tang had the courtesy name Jingshan and was a native of Wujun. In office he reached surveillance commissioner of Xuanzhou and Shezhou and was additionally appointed grand master of remonstrance.³ He first asked Nansen, “This disciple raised a goose in a bottle. It gradually grew too large to get out. Now, without damaging the bottle or injuring the goose, how can the venerable get it out?” Nansen called, “Grand Master!” Lu answered. Nansen said, “It is out.” From this Lu understood. He devoted attention to the nature of principle and roamed at ease through the Zhao lun. He reached the seventh, “Wondrous Preservation,” chapter of the Treatise on Nirvana's Namelessness: The dark Way lies in wondrous awakening. Wondrous awakening lies in immediate accord with the real. In according with the real, being and nonbeing are viewed equally. When they are viewed equally, self and other are no longer two. Therefore heaven and earth share one root with me, and the myriad things are one body with me. What is the same as me is no longer being or nonbeing; what is different from me violates comprehensive union. Therefore it is neither outside nor located within, and the Way abides between them.⁴ Lu cited these two phrases as remarkable. He was completely unaware that this was precisely talking in a dream. Even so, the elder Master Sekitō, while reading the Zhao lun, reached the seventeenth, “Communicating Antiquity,” chapter: The consummate person is open and empty, without fixed form, and none of the myriad things is outside what I fashion. Is it not only the sage who gathers the myriad things as self? He suddenly awakened to the Way and said, “The sage has no self; there is nowhere that is not the self.” He then composed the Cantong qi.⁵ Foguo said, “Lu Gen's asking in this way is certainly remarkable, but it still does not go beyond the teaching's meaning. If the teaching's meaning were the ultimate, why did the World-Honored One also raise a flower? Why did the ancestral teacher also come from the west?” In his answer Nansen used a patch-robed monk's handle, picked out Lu's illness for him, and broke open his nest. He pointed to the flower in front of the courtyard, called the grand master, and said, “People of the time see this single flower as though in a dream.” It was like leading him to the edge of a ten-thousand-fathom cliff and giving him one push so that his life-root would be severed. If you only push him over on level ground, he will not understand even when the Buddha Maitreya descends to be born.² National Teacher Shan of Yuantong raised his whisk and said: All conditioned things are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, and shadows.⁶ Tendō, precisely within the dream, transforms it into the land of Huaxu. His verse says: In Sengzhao's Baozang lun, the “Embodied Wonder of Departing the Subtle” chapter says: In issuing it is subtle; in entering it departs. Knowing entry as departure, external objects have nowhere to depend. Knowing issue as subtle, the inner mind has nothing to do. When the inner mind has nothing to do, views cannot move it. When external objects have nowhere to depend, the ten thousand beings cannot bind it.⁴ Tendō versifies Nansen: “Illuminating clear through the root of transformation beyond the subtle—amid their profuse entering and emerging, see its gate.” He sees two gates, emerging subtly and entering in departure. It is only one gate divided into inside and outside. In truth, in the ten directions there are no walls, and on four sides there is no gate. “Roam in spirit beyond the kalpas and ask what exists” means that heaven and earth share one root. “Set your eye before the body and know wondrous preservation” means that the myriad things are one body. Root and body can generate heaven, earth, and the myriad things, just as when a dragon chants mist rises and when a tiger roars wind is born: where there is stimulus, there must be response. Therefore, in the single flower before the courtyard, spring flowers beneath the whole sky are seen everywhere.⁷ Banshō will tell a dream. First there is the person who does not sleep. Next there is sleep. Because of sleep there is unconsciousness; because of unconsciousness there is dream. Because of dream an environment is seen. Because of the environment there is seen a separate body, which discriminates and experiences things within that environment. If you recognize the person who never sleeps, all those tangled vines are struck through beneath one stroke. Do you want to know the honored compassionate one awaiting buddhahood? If you do not investigate the root-source now, just wait and ask Maitreya when he comes.⁶