Ungan Donjō and the Seamless Monument

Keizan's commentary

The teacher was a son of the Wang family in Jianchang, Zhongling. He left home while young at Shimen and practiced with Zen Master Hyakujō Ekai for twenty years, but his affinity did not accord. Later he visited Yakusan. Yakusan asked, “Where have you come from?” The teacher said, “From Hyakujō.” Yakusan asked, “What words and phrases does Hyakujō use to instruct the community?” The teacher said, “He regularly says, ‘I have one phrase complete with the hundred flavors.’” Yakusan said, “Salty has salty flavor; bland has bland flavor; neither salty nor bland is ordinary flavor. What is the phrase complete with the hundred flavors?” The teacher had no answer. Yakusan said, “What will you do about birth and death immediately before you?” The teacher said, “Immediately before me there is no birth and death.” Yakusan asked, “How long were you at Hyakujō?” The teacher said, “Twenty years.” Yakusan said, “After twenty years at Hyakujō, you have not shed your worldly odor.”³ Another day, while Ungan stood attending, Yakusan asked again, “What other Dharma does Hyakujō teach?” The teacher said, “Sometimes he says, ‘Awaken beyond the three phrases; understand beyond the six phrases.’” Yakusan said, “Three thousand miles away—happily, there is no connection.” He asked again, “What other Dharma does Hyakujō teach?” The teacher said, “Once he ascended the hall,” continuing through the case until Ungan greatly awakened at the words. Practicing Zen and studying the way take clarifying heart and awakening to the intent as their guiding essentials. Ungan practiced at Hyakujō for twenty years, yet his affinity did not accord. Later he met Yakusan. Thus long practice and study do not necessarily count for everything; clarifying heart is fundamental. Nor does affinity's accord depend on beginning mind or later mind. Former affinity brings it about. It is not that Hyakujō was not the person; Ungan's affinity simply did not accord there.⁴ A good teacher does not merely gather a crowd and nurture people. The teacher seeks only to make each person pass directly to the source and immediately shoulder their original share. Thus people of old always asked, “From what place have you come?” Pilgrimage tests the teacher and distinguishes the place from which one comes. Asking what one has come to do clarifies the depth of resolve and knows the nearness or distance of affinity. Yakusan asks so Ungan will show that visiting this place and that has not been empty travel through mountains and waters. Ungan answers, “I come from Hyakujō.” Yakusan and Hyakujō taught at the same time, while Seigen and Nanyue stood as two horns. Thus Yakusan asks what words Hyakujō used. If Ungan had been the person here, he should have raised what he himself had heard and attained. Instead he spoke only what his ears had heard: “I have one phrase complete with the hundred flavors.” No phrase is incomplete or lacking fullness. Yet to discover whether Ungan had heard this decisive point, Yakusan asked: “Salty is salty, bland is bland, and neither is ordinary. What phrase contains the hundred flavors?” It was not something Ungan had heard and attained. With only the ears born from his parents, he had listened idly to frog-mouth preaching. Bewildered, he did not know where to answer. Yakusan therefore asked, “What will you do about birth and death immediately before you?” This is the great matter for beginners and later students. Impermanence is swift; birth and death are a great affair. Though one arouses resolve, travels, wears square robe and round head, without clarifying birth and death and reaching liberation, one does not know the intimate affair beneath the patched robe. One cannot leave the cage of the three realms or escape the nest of birth and death. It is like wearing the robe and carrying the alms bowl in vain. When Yakusan pressed, Ungan answered from his mouth, “Immediately before me there is no birth and death.” He had investigated only his own place of ease. Had he reached the original purpose of pilgrimage, he would not have held this view. Yakusan asked how long he had studied. Though those twenty years contained no idle period, they now seemed to have passed in vain, and Yakusan said his worldly odor remained. Even understanding no birth/death and no self/other did not recognize his original head. Unless he had a share that released both hands at the sheer cliff and quickly turned the body in the empty kalpa, worldly odor remained, discriminating feeling unbroken, the prison intact.⁵ Yakusan questioned him repeatedly to strike the matter precisely, but Ungan still lacked awareness. Even shouldering it beyond six phrases did not make the traceless iron hammer a standard. Even cutting off a thousand divergent roads left him dark to his own original brightness. Thus Yakusan said it was three thousand miles away, without connection. Finally Ungan raised Hyakujō's hall scene, but this too still rode another person's tongue and had not reached his own realized place. Even so, in raising it he presented an ancestral wind without a divergent road. Yakusan said, “Why did you not say this earlier? Through you today I have seen Elder Brother Hai.” The meaning of Hyakujō driving away the settled assembly came in solitary freedom without dependence, requiring no further adjustment. Yet if one merely repeats the act, even after dust-kalpas there may be no attainment. To startle them, Hyakujō called loudly, “Great assembly!” Strike the south and the north moves: without noticing, they turned their heads. Awakening finally did not pass through thought. Hyakujō asked, “What is it?” Regrettably, perhaps not one person in his assembly understood. No one spoke here, yet Yakusan said from afar, “Through you I have seen Elder Brother Hai.” When people of old placed one phrase at this ground, they said, “We have already met.” It is like the same wind across a thousand miles and like not one thread separating them. Thus Ungan first practiced with Hyakujō and then climbed Yakusan. Finally teacher and disciple were not divided, and he penetrated both sides. Shoulder this ground, and you will not only cease doubting your own affair from vast kalpas. You will see through the buddhas of the three times, the six ancestral teachers, and patch-robed monks with nostrils, piercing them at a glance and one thrust. You will meet Yakusan and Hyakujō and directly join eyes with Ungan and Dōgo. For the moment, how can you pass through this principle? Great assembly, do you wish to hear?