The Lotus Peak Hermit Will Not Stay

Engo's commentary on the case

Can all of you distinguish the Lotus Peak Hermit? Your heels have not yet touched the ground. At the beginning of the dynasty he built a hermitage on Lotus Peak at Tiantai. After attaining the Way, the ancients lived beneath thatch or in stone chambers, boiling wild roots in a broken-legged pot to pass the days. They did not seek fame or profit, but lived freely according to conditions. He offered one turning word to repay the buddhas and ancestors and transmit the seal of the Buddha-mind. Whenever he saw a monk approach, he raised his staff and asked, “When the ancients reached here, why would they not stay?” For more than twenty years no one could answer. This single question had provisional and real, illumination and function. If you knew his snare, one pinch would be unnecessary. Why did he ask the same thing for twenty years? If this was the work of a teacher of the source, why guard one stake? See here and you naturally will not run after emotional dust. During those twenty years, how many people spread out answers, displayed interpretations, and exhausted their tricks? Even if one spoke correctly, it would not reach his ultimate point. Although this affair is not in words and phrases, without words and phrases it cannot be distinguished. It is said, “The Way fundamentally has no words; through words the Way is revealed.” To test a person's exact place, one knows the music as soon as the mouth opens. The ancients offered a word or half a phrase only to see whether you knew there is such a thing. Seeing that people did not understand, the hermit answered for them: “Because the road did not provide strength.” His words naturally accorded with principle and working. When did they ever lose the source? An ancient said, “When receiving words, discern the source; do not establish rules of your own.” People now simply barge ahead. They may attain something, but remain muddle-headed and indiscriminate. Before an expert, test them by stamping empty space, mud, and water with the words of the Three Essentials. Then a square timber offered to a round hole has nowhere to land.² At this point, where will you suddenly find someone who attained and verified alike? If a person knows there is such a thing, why not open the breast and communicate some news? If you do not meet the right person, roll it up and keep it within. A staff is an ordinary tool of patch-robed monks. Why say the road does not provide strength, and why would the ancients not stay? Gold dust is precious, but in the eye it becomes a cataract. During the Buddhist suppression, Master Shandao of the Stone Chamber often raised his staff and said, “The buddhas of the past were like this. The buddhas of the future are like this. The buddhas of the present are like this.” One day before the monks' hall Seppō raised his staff and said, “This is only for people of middling and lesser faculties.” A monk asked, “What if a person of the very highest capacity comes?” Seppō picked up his staff and left. Unmon said, “I am not like Seppō, breaking things into a mess.” A monk asked, “What would you do, Master?” Unmon struck him. Inquiry does not involve so many affairs. Outside you see mountains, rivers, and earth; inside, seeing, hearing, sensing, and knowing; above, buddhas to seek; below, beings to save. Vomit them all out at once. Then throughout the twelve periods, walking, standing, sitting, and lying down form one piece. On the tip of a hair, you are broad as the sands of a thousand-world cosmos. In a boiling cauldron or furnace coals, you are as in a land of bliss. Amid seven jewels and eight treasures, you are as beneath thatch and mugwort. An adept reaching the ancients' real place naturally expends no effort. Seeing no one could meet him, the hermit questioned himself again: “Ultimately, how is it?” With no one able to do anything with him, he answered: “With the thornwood staff carried crosswise, heedless of anyone, go straight into a thousand peaks and ten thousand peaks.” What is this intent? What place does he indicate as the destination? The phrase has an eye; beyond the words lies intent. He raises and topples himself, releases and gathers himself. The venerable Yanyang once met a monk on the road, raised his staff, and asked, “What is this?” “I do not know.” “You do not even know a staff?” Yanyang stabbed the ground once. “Do you know this?” “I do not know.” “You do not even know a hole in the earth?” Yanyang shouldered the staff. “Do you understand?” “No.” Yanyang said, “With the thornwood staff carried crosswise, heedless of anyone, go straight into a thousand peaks and ten thousand peaks.” Why would the ancients, reaching here, refuse to stay? Setchō once wrote: Who can raise the working without deception? Even so, such a one is rare. Crushing the steep, melting the subtle mystery, the double barrier has opened vast—yet adepts do not return together. The jade rabbit now full, now waning; the golden crow seems to fly, yet does not fly. Where has old Lu gone? No one knows; white clouds and flowing water linger together.³ Why does this mountain monk say, “If you see his cheeks from behind his head, do not associate with him”? The moment you calculate, you make a livelihood in the ghost cave of Black Mountain. See through and trust completely, and thousands cannot contain you or do anything with you. Touch or press and there is naturally killing and giving life. Setchō understood the hermit's intent in “go straight into a thousand peaks and ten thousand peaks.” Only then did he compose his verse. Setchō's verse is very good. It has a place to turn the body and does not guard one corner: “Sand in the eyes, earth in the ears.” This line versifies the Lotus Peak Hermit. When a patch-robed monk reaches here, above there is nothing to climb toward, and below one's own person is cut off. At all times one seems stupid and inert. Nansen said, “Among students of the Way, one as dull as this is hard to find.” Chanyue wrote, “I often remember Nansen's fine words: one so dull as this is rare.” Fadeng said, “Who understands this intent? It makes me remember Nansen.” Nansen also said, “The seven hundred eminent monks all understood the Buddha Dharma. Only the lay practitioner Lu did not understand the Buddha Dharma; he understood only the Way. Therefore he obtained the robe and bowl.”⁴ How far apart are the Buddha Dharma and the Way? Setchō raised this: “The eye cannot tolerate sand, nor the ear water.” If someone trusts completely, holds firm, and is not deceived, what are the teachings of buddhas and ancestors but noise from a hot bowl? Hang the bowl-bag high and snap the staff: certainly one person of no affairs. He also said, “The eye can hold Mount Sumeru, and the ear the waters of the great sea.” Another kind of person receives others' discussion and the ancestral teachings like a dragon gaining water or tiger leaning against a mountain. Take up the bowl-bag and shoulder the staff: this too is one person of no affairs. Again he said, “This way will not do; not this way will not do. After that, there is no connection.” Among these three people of no affairs, choose one as your teacher. Such a person is cast from raw iron. Whether meeting a malign condition or an extraordinary one, everything before them resembles a dream. They do not know the six faculties or dawn and dusk. Even reaching this ground, never guard cold ash and dead fire or be knocked into black vacancy. There must still be a road on which to turn the body. An ancient said, “Do not guard the cold cliff where strange grasses grow green; sitting away the white clouds, the source is not marvelous.” Therefore the Lotus Peak Hermit said the road did not provide strength. One must go through a thousand peaks and ten thousand peaks. What do those peaks mean? Setchō loved “With the thornwood staff carried crosswise, heedless of anyone, go straight into a thousand peaks and ten thousand peaks,” and therefore versified it. Where does he go? Does anyone know? Falling flowers and flowing water—utterly vast. Flowers fall in profusion; water flows into vastness. A lightning working—what is before your eyes? Raise your eyebrows—where has he gone? Why does Setchō not know where he went? This mountain monk just raised the whisk; where is it now? If you see, you study together with the Lotus Peak Hermit. If not, beneath three rafters and before the seven-foot platform, investigate carefully.⁵