Yakusan Igen and Preserving It

Keizan's commentary

The teacher's personal name was Weiyan. He was a son of the Han family in Jiangzhou. At seventeen he relied on Zen Master Huizhao of West Mountain in Chaoyang and left home. He received the precepts from Vinaya Master Xicao at Mount Heng, broadly mastered scriptures and treatises, and strictly maintained discipline. One day he lamented, “A great man should leave dharmas and purify himself. Who can fuss over minute conduct on a strip of cloth?”³ He first went to Sekitō's room and asked, “I have a rough knowledge of the three vehicles and twelve divisions,” continuing through the case until Baso said, “Guard and maintain it well.” He attended Sekitō for three years. One day the ancestor asked, “What is your view lately?” The teacher said, “Skin has completely fallen away; there is only one reality.” Sekitō said, “What you have attained may be called accord with heart-substance, spread through the four limbs. Since it is so, bind your belly with three strips of bamboo and go live on a mountain wherever you will.” The teacher said, “What sort of person am I that I dare speak of living on a mountain?” Sekitō said, “Not so. There has never been constant going without dwelling, nor constant dwelling without going. Wishing to benefit, there is nothing to benefit; wishing to do, there is nothing to do. You should become a boat and ferry. Do not remain here long.” The teacher then bade the ancestor farewell and later returned to Sekitō. One day, while he was sitting, Sekitō asked, “What are you doing here?” The teacher said, “Doing nothing at all.” Sekitō said, “Then you are sitting idly.” The teacher said, “If I were sitting idly, that would be doing.” Sekitō asked, “You say ‘doing nothing.’ What is it that you do not do?” The teacher said, “A thousand sages do not know it.” Sekitō praised him in a verse: Always living together, yet not knowing the name; Naturally carrying one another, simply going this way. Even superior sages from ancient times did not know it; How could careless ordinary people understand?⁴ Later Sekitō said, “Speech, movement, and function have no connection with it.” The teacher said, “What is beyond speech, movement, and function also has no connection with it.” Sekitō said, “At my place, even a needle cannot pierce.” The teacher said, “At my place, it is like planting a flower on stone.” Sekitō approved. Later the teacher lived at Yakusan in Lizhou, where a great community gathered like clouds. Through the encounter just raised, you should clearly know that the Seigen and Nanyue houses are not separately different. They are the two horns of Sōkei, originally the far-ranging white ox in the open ground. He practiced there and clarified here, passed through there and succeeded here, without a hair's difference. At first he asked about the intent of directly pointing to heart and seeing nature. Speaking of this ground, Sekitō said, “This way will not do; not this way will not do; this way and not this way together will not do.” Here there is nowhere to arrange self and no place to suspect another. Yet Yakusan clung precisely to the place where nothing can be obtained, and therefore did not know where to turn at the words. He stood thinking for a long time. Sekitō sent him to Jiangxi so Baso could speak in his place. Baso understood the intention and said, “Sometimes I have him raise his eyebrows and blink; sometimes I do not. Sometimes it is right; sometimes it is not.” Showing that things vary according to the time, he caused Yakusan to awaken there. Yakusan knew that from raising eyebrows and blinking through seeing, hearing, sensing, knowing, movement, function, going, and coming, all of it is present. He immediately bowed.⁵ Baso asked what principle he had seen. The teacher said, “At Sekitō's place I was like a mosquito on an iron bull.” There was nowhere to insert the proboscis. Seeing and knowing were exhausted, emotional understanding lost. Though he himself did not know, he was already a real person. Later Sekitō asked his recent view. Recognizing not a dust-point or hair's flaw, Yakusan said, “Skin has completely fallen away; there is only one reality.” It is exceedingly difficult in study to reach this ground. Sekitō praised him completely: it accorded with heart-substance and spread through the limbs. There was no place it did not reach and no thing through which it did not pass. He finally reached the expression “doing nothing at all.” Though the enjoyment of a thousand transformations is variegated, he knew it leaves no tracks, like planting a flower on stone. He had first sought the direct pointing to heart and greatly awakened when shown the one who raises eyebrows and blinks. Later, teaching the community, he said, “I now speak this word to reveal the wordless one, whose original form has neither ears nor eyes.” Because beginning, middle, and end had a real place, he showed it to others. Students should therefore practice as Yakusan did. Though ancestral teachers cannot be ranked by virtue, Yakusan was especially lofty in receiving capacities and spare in guarding himself. His community reportedly never reached twenty because its life was so austere that people could not bear hunger and cold.⁶ Yet Ungan, Dōgo, Chuanzi, Novice Gao, Hō Er, and Lord Li Ao were among its many monastic and lay people of the way. Students must first study intimately and not concern themselves with whether worldly conditions are rich or thin. Ungan, Dōgo, and Chuanzi shared one resolve and for forty years did not let their sides touch a mat. Only a community of the way could have practitioners like these.⁷ Venerable practitioners, aspire to be siblings of Ungan and Dōgo and to penetrate Baso and Sekitō. Do you not see? Sometimes raising the eyebrows and blinking is right; sometimes it is not. There is no need to doubt that ground. Every person comes already complete. When you seek to know that place, it already has no shape of ears or eyes and cannot be distinguished within seeing and hearing. It is altogether doing nothing. Though it has always lived together with you and you have never finally known its name, it has carried you naturally. More than that, it makes you be born and die, go and come, move and function, see, hear, sense, and know. This is precisely this one. Do not seek true Dharma beyond your share. How could you promise to see nature at some later time? Even the three vehicles and twelve divisions teach this principle, and all sentient beings continuously make use of it this way. How could you seek proof from another? Know that you yourself raise the eyebrows and blink. If you only see and attain the one who sees, hears, senses, and knows, you will not doubt the tongues of old reverends throughout the world. For the moment, how will you annotate this principle?