Mayoku's Ring-Staff

Engo's commentary on the case

The ancients traveled through many communities with this one affair in mind, testing whether the elder on the curved wooden seat had the eye. One word in accord and they stayed; one word not in accord and they left. Zhangjing's “Right, right” is both killing blade and life-giving sword; only an expert can use it. Setchō says “Wrong.” If you interpret through the two sides, you miss him. Why did Mayoku stand erect? Where was his error, and where was Zhangjing's right? Setchō reads judgment like a magistrate. Mayoku carried the word “right” to Nansen and repeated the gesture. Nansen's “Not right” is also killing blade and life-giving sword. Setchō again says “Wrong.” Are the two replies the same or different? Why is both “right” and “not right” wrong? Recognize only beneath Zhangjing's phrase and you cannot save yourself; recognize beneath Nansen's and you may teach buddhas and patriarchs. Even so, a monk must approve himself and not merely take another's eloquence. An adept with great liberation has another livelihood. Forget neither working nor scene and you remain stuck at the two ends. To distinguish ancient and present and cut off tongues, understand Setchō's two errors. His verse later treats only these, preserving the lively place. Some say Setchō supplied Mayoku's answer. That has no connection. An ancient's appended word locks the vital barrier: this side is right and that side is right, yet ultimately it lies at neither end. Yongjia performed the same circling and staff-shaking before Huineng. Huineng said a śramaṇa possesses three thousand dignified forms and eighty thousand subtle practices, then accused him of great arrogance. Huineng said neither right nor not-right; both are donkey-tethering stakes. Setchō's two “wrongs” are somewhat closer. Mayoku's protest leaked. Nansen released the hawk on seeing the rabbit: “Zhangjing's right is right; you are not.” Yet another master criticized Nansen for clumsily adding, “This is turned by wind and will decay.” The Sūtra of Perfect Enlightenment says the body is a conjunction of four elements: hair, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, sinews, bones, marrow, brain, and grime return to earth; fluids to water; warmth to fire; movement to wind. When these separate, where is the delusive body?² If Mayoku's circling is wind-motion bound to decay, where is the affair illuminating the mind-source? Here one must be cast from raw iron. The scholar Zhang Zhuo asked Xitang, “Do mountains, rivers, earth, and the buddhas of the three times exist or not?” Xitang said, “They exist.” Zhang said, “Wrong.” Xitang asked whom he had studied with. Zhang named Jingshan, who had answered every such question “does not exist.” Xitang asked about Zhang's dependents; Zhang had a wife and two foolish children. Zhang asked about Jingshan's. Xitang replied, “Jingshan is an ancient buddha; do not slander him. When you resemble Jingshan, say everything does not exist.” Zhang lowered his head. An expert teacher unsticks and unbinds, pulls nails and wedges, and never guards one side. Kyōzan came to Chūyū to give thanks for the precepts. Chūyū clapped on the seat and called, “Master!” Kyōzan stood east, west, then center, bowed, and withdrew. Chūyū asked where he got this samādhi. Kyōzan said it came from the seal at Sōkei. Asked whom Sōkei received with it, he named “the overnight awakened one,” Yongjia. Kyōzan asked Chūyū's source; Chūyū said Baso. This is raising one and illuminating three, seeing root and following branch. Ryūge said students must pass through and beyond buddhas and patriarchs. Xinfeng said only regarding their teachings as sworn enemies gives one a share in study. Asked whether buddhas intend to deceive, Ryūge compared rivers and lakes: they have no intention to obstruct, but people cannot cross, so they become obstructions. One cannot therefore say they do not obstruct. Likewise, buddhas do not intend deception, yet those unable to penetrate make them deception. Pass beyond them, embody their intent, and accord with the ancients directed upward. Otherwise imitation brings no attainment through ten thousand eons. Asked how not to be deceived, Ryūge said, “You must awaken for yourself.” To serve people, serve thoroughly; to kill, show blood. Nansen and Setchō dare handle the case because they are such people. Like the verse on Tokusan meeting Isan, Setchō first joins two appended words into one string: “This is wrong; that is wrong. Above all, do not take them up.” Take them up and you deviate. With both errors set down, the four seas become calm and a hundred tides fall. Understand there and there is not the slightest affair: mountains are mountains, water water, long naturally long and short short. Then he versifies Mayoku's staff: “The ancient staff's wind rises above the twelve gates.” The ancients called a whip a goad; monks use the staff as their goad. The Jade Pool of the Queen Mother of the West, the emperor's residence, and Indra's are said to have twelve vermilion gates. The clear wind at the staff's head rises higher than them all. Understand the two errors and the staff shines, yet the ancient staff itself is unnecessary. It is said, “Recognize the staff and lifelong study is complete”; also, “It is no empty emblem merely stripping form—the Tathāgata's jeweled staff is his intimate trace.” Here one turns upside down in every direction and remains free. “At every gate a road, empty and desolate.” Setchō senses his leak and breaks it: there is also a place “not desolate.” Even an expert, while without illness, must first seek a little medicine.