Kyūhō Does Not Approve

Banshō's commentary on the case

Zen Master Daoqian of Kyūhō in Junzhou personally transmitted Sekisō's Way. He obtained the staff that kills and gives life and possessed a patch-robed monk's handle. The head monk carried a board and grasped only one segment. When Kyūhō said, “If so, you still do not understand our late teacher's intent,” the head monk should simply have said, “I do not equal you.” He would have left Kyūhō no ground to stand on and made him submit wholeheartedly. Have you not heard, “Striving leaves insufficiency; yielding leaves abundance”? Students today merely say, “The ancients departed seated and died standing, while people today wave hands and stamp feet in confusion when leaving.” They also cite Ouyang, Duke Wenzhong, who met an old monk on Mount Song and said, “People today are in confusion thought after thought; how could they become settled at death?” Then they turn entirely toward seeking rapid birth and rapid extinction.⁴ Juefan versified: When it is time to die, end when ending is due. Seated departure and standing death are children's boasting. Curd comes from milk by no separate method; why suffer to know beforehand when death will come? Two court officials asked the venerable Zhao of Baofeng, “The ancients were free to remain or go at death. Through what Way did they reach it?” Baofeng said, “Bring the former monk.” The text then says, “He hanged himself and died.” The referent is uncertain.⁵ When Baofeng himself was dying, the assembled monks requested a final instruction. He spoke several abusive sentences and died. If Sekisō's head monk had reached this ground, he would have escaped being pressed to death by Kyūhō. Foguo's instruction to the monk Gao says: “Alas! I see one blind-beating breed of wild foxes who have never even dreamed of seeing the ancestors. Yet they falsely transmit that Bodhidharma taught people embryonic breathing, calling it ‘transmitting Dharma to rescue deluded feelings.’ They go so far as to invoke the oldest lineage teachers—National Teacher An, Jōshū, and the like—saying that all practiced this breath method. “They boast of the first ancestor's single sandal and Puhua's empty coffin, saying these prove the method effective because the entire body disappeared, and calling this ‘form and spirit both wondrous.’⁶ “Because people cling dearly to this body and fear panic on the thirtieth day of the twelfth month, they compete to transmit methods of ‘returning to the real.’ On New Year's Eve they watch their shadows and call ‘Master!’ They divine the day and month, listen to the tower drum, examine the ‘jade pool,’ and observe the light of the eyes, taking these as methods for escaping birth and death. “They truly deceive village neighborhoods, fabricate falsehood, construct nests, and leave themselves open to the scorn of discerning people. “Another group falsely attributes to the first ancestor teachings on embryonic breathing, Jōshū's ‘Separate Song of the Twelve Hours,’ and Hō Koji's verse on turning the river cart. They instruct one another, secretly transmit and practice these methods, and scheme for long life and the disappearance of the whole body. Some hope for three or five hundred years. They have no idea that this is truly delusive thought born from craving views.”⁷ Banshō says: Many people today who look down upon teachers everywhere want spectators when they depart. This is like painting smoke-black onto a fine goiter—what is there to celebrate? Throughout his life Sekisō established a Dead Tree Hall and settled the Dead Tree assembly there. They often sat continuously without lying down, and many reputedly departed seated or died standing. Kyūhō alone did not approve of the head monk. Those today who admire departing seated or dying standing—why do they not investigate the place where Kyūhō did not approve? What function did Kyūhō possess? Ask Tendō. Tendō's benevolence and justice first decide matters at the place of poverty; worldly sentiment inclines toward the wealthy house. Banshō says: in setting out the teaching at the gate, Tendō does not equal Kyūhō; in profound discussion entering principle, he remains a hundred paces better than the head monk. The venerable Shengmo wrote in his historical poems on the ancestral court: Head Monk Yuan vainly perished with one stick of incense; Kyūhō was not suppressing a worthy elder. If one color is made the basis of succession, the late teacher's condition of nonborrowing is betrayed. Sekisō instructed the assembly: “Never forgetting illumination is still external succession, the minister seed”; this is also called “borrowing.” If birth occurs with not a hair's breadth separating—like a royal child who at birth can succeed to the great position—it is called “internal succession,” “the king seed,” and “the phrase of nonborrowing.”² Borrowing is only the matter on the side of one color. When there is no alternative, responding to circumstances and benefiting beings is called “carrying along.” The marked forehead and flying dragon also use the story of fish transforming at Yu Gate. They also invoke the fifth nine of the Qian hexagram in the Book of Changes: “A flying dragon in heaven,” an image of obtaining the position.⁸ How could that compare with the crane dreaming in the moon nest or the person lost in the snow house? Do you still recognize the place where Sekisō transmitted to Kyūhō? Tear open the perfume bag and fragrance fills the great land; push open heaven's aperture and the true wind roars.