Tōzan Is Always Intimate

Banshō's commentary on the case

In the original record the question is, “Among the three bodies, which single body expounds the Dharma?” Tōzan says, “I am always intimate with this.” Zen Master Ren of Sozan first asked Tōzan, “Please, teacher, instruct me in the word before there is anything.” Tōzan said, “I do not assent; no one accepts.” Sozan said, “Can one still become intimate?” Tōzan said, “Ācārya, can you become intimate right now?” Sozan said, “If intimacy cannot be attained, there is nowhere to avoid.” Tōzan approved him.³ Later a monk asked Sōzan, “Our late teacher said, ‘I am always intimate with this.’ What was his intent?” Sōzan said, “If you want your head, chop it off and take it away.” The monk also asked Seppō. Seppō struck him across the mouth with his staff and said, “I too once went to Tōzan.”⁴ Zong of Chengtian said, “One turning word makes the sea calm and the Yellow River clear. One turning word makes the wind high and moon cold. One turning word rides the bandit's horse to pursue the bandit. Please try to distinguish them. “If suddenly a patch-robed monk came forward and said, ‘None is like that,’ I would also allow that he possessed one eye.” Originally, descendants beneath Yakusan offered the matter from the side and guarded the taboo. Fine source texts often agree on this. Have you not heard? A monk asked Sekisō, “What is the ancestral teacher's intent in coming from the west?” Sekisō clenched his teeth and showed them. The monk did not understand. After Sekisō passed away, the monk asked Kyūhō, “What was our late teacher's intent in clenching his teeth?” Kyūhō said, “I would rather cut off my tongue than violate the state's taboo.” The monk also asked Yungai. Yungai said, “What enmity do I have with our late teacher?”⁵ The venerable Yong of Baoning versified: How painful, this intimacy, when one seeks outside; why does the nearest kin seem like an enemy? From beginning to end, shame never colors his face, and Sōzan further asks you for your head. It is certainly fine—only it violates wind and smoke too greatly. Look at the several kinds of Tendō's fine intimacy. “Not entering the world, not yet following conditions”: if you see the cheeks from behind the head, do not associate with such a person. “At the empty place of the kalpa-vessel, the family transmission exists.” Tōzan sings in this way; Sōzan harmonizes in this way; Seppō finishes it off in this way. The three stages must be urged on by the whole company, for the Yellow River is turbid from its source.⁶ Zhou Qi's Record of Local Customs distinguishes the names ping, pin, and celery. The larger is pin; the smaller is ping. For “white pin,” a poem by Liu Yun says: On Ting Lake they gather white water-ferns; at sunset, spring in Jiangnan. In the grotto is a guest returning; at Xiaoxiang one meets an old friend. Later people named that place White-Pin Islet. “Fine wind over white water-ferns; dusk on the autumn river” also recalls Song Yu's “Rhapsody on Wind”: Wind is born at the tips of green water-ferns; it gradually enters stream and valley, follows the slopes of Mount Tai, and dances beneath pine and cypress. It is called white pin because its shoots are green and its flowers white.⁷ I dare ask: to what place does the boat returning to the ancient bank go? Who knows? Beyond the distant smoke and waves is another fine consideration.