Dōan Daopi and the Robe

Keizan's commentary

No one knows where the teacher came from. He met Yunju and served as his attendant for several years. Once Yunju said in the hall: “When a monk issues words and breath, there must be a source. Do not treat it casually. What kind of place is this? How could it be easy? “Whenever you ask about a matter, you must know a little good from bad. Above all, do not bring it forward. Bringing it forward does not resemble it. “One who knows ‘there is’ naturally understands how to protect and cherish it and is never careless. Ten times about to speak, nine times that person stops. Why? For fear there will be no benefit. “The heart of one who embodies it is like a fan in the twelfth month. Mold grows right at the edge of the mouth. This is not forced; naturally it is so. “If you wish to attain such a matter, you must be such a person. Since you are such a person, why worry about such a matter?”² Such a matter is indeed difficult to attain. Hearing this instruction, the teacher immediately clarified it and finally resolved the affair of his life. Later he lived at Dōan Monastery on Fengqi Mountain in Hongzhou. He was Zen Master Daopi and vigorously opened and expounded Yunju's ancestral wind. Once a student asked, “How can losing the head and recognizing its shadow be stopped?” The teacher said, “Tell whom?” The student asked, “What is it?” The teacher said, “Seek it from another and you go still farther away.” The student asked, “What about when I do not seek it from another?” The teacher said, “Where is the head?”³ A monk asked, “What is the reverend's house style?” The teacher said: The golden cock embraces its child and returns to the Milky Way; The jade hare carries a fetus into the Purple Tenuity.⁴ The monk asked, “If a guest suddenly comes, how will you receive him?” The teacher said: At early dawn a monkey plucks away the golden fruit; Late at night a phoenix carries in the jade blossom. At first, through his former teacher's instruction, Daopi clarified the genuine ground. Speaking of his house style, he sent the golden cock to the Milky Way and the jade hare into the Purple Tenuity. Teaching others, golden fruit is plucked every day and jade flowers carried every night. No encounter in study can be ranked above another, but examine the present one especially closely. Why? If you wish to attain such a matter, you are precisely such a person. Even if you became confused about your head and came searching, it is precisely the head. The founder of Eihei said, “Who is what I call I? What I call who is I.” Lecturer Liang Sui visited Mayoku. Seeing him approach, Mayoku immediately shut the gate. Liang Sui knocked. Mayoku asked, “Who is it?” Liang Sui answered, “Liang Sui.” As soon as he spoke his name, he suddenly accorded and awakened. He said, “Reverend, do not deceive Liang Sui. Had I not come to bow to you, the twelve divisions of scriptures and treatises would almost have deceived me through a whole lifetime.” Mayoku opened the gate and had him explain the source of his awakening, then approved him. When Liang Sui returned to the lecture hall, he dismissed the teaching seat and told his students, “What all of you know, Liang Sui knows entirely. What Liang Sui knows, all of you do not know.”⁵ This place of knowing truly does not admit even the wind. If all of you investigate intimately, you will find it has come complete from beginningless kalpas, never missing for one instant. Even when you measure and seek with thought, this is precisely I and not another. Even when it illuminates alone without discrimination, this too is I and is not new today. It uses the eye, uses the ear, uses the mouth, opens the hand, and moves the foot. All of it is I. Originally it is not taken by the hand or seen by the eye. Therefore it is not a matter discussed by sound and color or a place reached by ear and eye. When each person examines closely, each must know that I am and know that oneself is. To know this place, first set aside all judgments of right and wrong. When you do not rely on things and do not pass into another, this heart alone is brighter than sun and moon and clearer than frost and snow. This does not mean dark confusion that cannot discern right and wrong. It is pure and brightly manifest; self naturally appears. Therefore do not think there is something apart from speech/silence and movement/stillness, bearing no skin, flesh, bones, or marrow. Do not imagine it standing isolated, neither thinking “I” nor saying “other,” lacking any responsive thought, standing like a stump, wholly independent of things and mindless like grass or trees. How could study of Buddha's way be the same as plants? The view that originally there is no self, no other, and altogether not one thing agrees with a non-Buddhist annihilation view and the emptiness view of the two vehicles. How could the Great Vehicle's ultimate principle be the same? When you reach exact landing through intimate penetration, it cannot be called being because it is spaciously empty. It cannot be called nonbeing because it is lucidly clear. It is not divided by body, speech, and mind and cannot be discriminated by heart, thought, and consciousness. How can this principle be penetrated?