Unmon's “Body Exposed in the Golden Wind”

Engo's commentary on the case

Recognize it here and you begin to see how Unmon met people. Otherwise you still point to a deer and call it a horse, blind and deaf. Who reaches this realm? Did Unmon answer the monk, or sing in response? Say he answered and you mistake the fixed mark on the balance. Say he sang in harmony and you have no connection. If neither, what is it? See through and no one need pinch a patch-robed monk's nostrils. Otherwise you are knocked into a ghost cave. To support the ancestral vehicle, shoulder it with the whole body, spare no eyebrows, and place yourself across the tiger's mouth, letting it drag you any way it likes. Otherwise, how could you serve people? The monk's question was perilously steep. Seen as an ordinary matter, he resembles a monk meddling in idle business. Viewed at the lifeline of the patch-robed community, it contains a subtle point. Whose realm is the withering tree and falling leaves? Among the eighteen kinds of questions, this is called “a question discerning the host” and “a question borrowing an affair.”² Unmon altered not one thread: “The body is exposed in the golden wind.” He answered marvelously and did not betray the question, for the question had an eye and the answer was exact. An ancient said, “If you want intimacy, do not bring a question to ask.” One who knows the music understands as soon as it is raised. Search inside the verbal pulse of Unmon's sentence and you are already wrong. His phrases readily provoke conceptual interpretation; interpret emotionally and you destroy my descendants. Unmon liked to ride the thief's horse to pursue the thief. Asked, “What is the place beyond thinking?” he answered, “Discriminating consciousness cannot measure it.” Here his “body exposed in the golden wind” cuts off the vital crossing and admits neither ordinary nor holy. You must understand how he raises one and illuminates three, or raises three and illuminates one. Search among the three and you pull an arrow from behind your head. His single sentence contains three phrases: the phrase enclosing heaven and earth, the phrase following waves, and the phrase cutting off every stream. Which did he use to receive the monk? Distinguish it. An ancient said, “When receiving words, discern the source; do not establish rules of your own.” Ancient speech was not empty. Before asking, one must know good from bad. Speak randomly without knowing high and low, advance and retreat, pure and defiled—what benefit can result? Words and breath must act like pincers, with hooks and locks, continuing without interruption. The monk's question had a guiding source; Unmon's answer did too. Unmon ordinarily received people with three phrases. This is the ultimate model. Setchō's verse resembles his verse on Dairyū's case: “The three phrases can be distinguished.” One sentence contains all three; distinguish them and emerge beyond them. “One arrowhead spans the empty distance.” The arrow flies exceedingly far, so look quickly. See distinctly and beneath one sentence you can unfold a cosmos of a thousand worlds. Having completed the case, Setchō still had talent left and expanded it: Across the great wilds, the cool wind soughs; through the long sky, sparse rain mists. Is this mind or scene, mystery or subtlety? An ancient said, “Dharma after dharma hides nothing; from antiquity to now it is always exposed.”³ The monk asked about withering trees and falling leaves; Unmon answered with the body exposed in the golden wind. Setchō makes it one scene. Before your eyes now, the wind blows: if not southeast, then northwest. You must understand directly like this. Construct an interpretation about Zen or the Way and you have no connection. “Do you not see the traveler long seated at Shōrin, not yet returned?” Before Bodhidharma returned west, he faced the wall for nine years, utterly still.⁴ Is that the withering tree and falling leaves, or the body exposed in the golden wind? When past and present, ordinary and holy, heaven, earth, and the whole world become one piece, only then do you see exactly how Unmon and Setchō met people. “Quietly he rests against Bear Ear's cluster upon cluster.” Bear Ear refers to the Shōrin region of Mount Song near the western capital. A thousand clusters before the mountain, ten thousand behind it—where do you see them? Do you see how Setchō met people? This too is the spirit turtle dragging its tail.