Kyōsei's Sound of Raindrops

Engo's commentary on the case

Right here is already a good place to recognize it. When the ancients presented one mechanism or one situation, they intended to receive people. One day Kyōsei asked a monk, “What sound is outside the gate?” “The sound of raindrops.” Kyōsei said, “Living beings are upside down: they lose themselves and chase after things.” On another occasion he asked, “What sound is outside?” “A turtledove.” Kyōsei said, “If you wish not to incur karma that interrupts the Way, do not slander the Tathāgata's true Dharma wheel.” Again he asked, “What sound is outside?” “A snake biting a toad.” Kyōsei said, “I thought living beings suffered; there are further suffering living beings.” These sayings and the present public case are not two kinds. If a patch-robed monk penetrates here, he can be free within heaps of sound and form. If not, sound and form confine him. Everywhere this kind of public case is called “tempering speech.” But if understood merely as tempering, it becomes mental conduct and misses where the ancients helped people. It is also called penetrating sound and form: first clarifying the eye of the Way; second clarifying sound and form; third clarifying the source of mind; fourth clarifying forgetting affect; fifth clarifying extension and exposition. This is undeniably detailed, but what can be done about the mold still present? Kyōsei asks, “What sound is outside the gate?” The monk says, “The sound of raindrops.” Kyōsei says, “Living beings are upside down: they lose themselves and chase after things.” Everyone misunderstands this as Kyōsei deliberately turning the monk around. That has no connection. They do not know Kyōsei had hands and feet for helping people. Bold and unrestricted by one mechanism or situation, he risked his eyebrows completely. Did Kyōsei not know it was rain? Why would he need to ask? Know that the ancients used a probing pole and shadowing grass to test this monk. The monk too was good at pressing and crowding, so he asked, “What about you, Master?” Kyōsei went into mud and water and answered, “I almost did not lose myself.” The monk certainly loses himself and pursues things—but why does Kyōsei lose himself too? Know that within the testing phrase there is already a place to emerge. The monk is far too muddled and wants to cut the saying off completely. He asks further, “What is the meaning of ‘I almost did not lose myself’?” Under Tokusan or Rinzai, staff and shout would already have been enacted. Kyōsei opens one narrow road, follows the monk in trailing vines, and says, “Emerging is still relatively easy; speaking it through the whole body should be difficult.” Even so, an ancient said, “Continuation is extremely difficult.” With a single phrase Kyōsei clarifies for this monk the great matter directly beneath his heels. Setchō's verse says: “In the empty hall, the sound of raindrops. An adept finds it difficult to respond.” Call it the sound of rain and you lose yourself and pursue things. Do not call it rain—then how do you turn things? Here even an adept finds response difficult. Thus an ancient said, “When one's seeing equals the teacher's, one diminishes half the teacher's virtue. Only seeing beyond the teacher makes one worthy of transmission.” Nanyuan also said, “Beneath the staff is patience regarding the unborn; at the occasion, do not yield even to the teacher.” “If one says, ‘I once entered the stream,’ still, as before, one does not understand.” The teaching says: At first, within hearing, enter the stream and forget the object. Once the object entered has become still, the two marks of motion and stillness clearly do not arise.³ Say it is the sound of raindrops, and that is not it. Say it is not the sound of raindrops, and that is not it either. The earlier verse said, “Two shouts and three shouts—the adept knows the change of mechanism.” This verse is precisely the same kind. Say it is entering the stream of sound and form, and that is not it. Call it sound and form, and still you do not understand his intent. It is like pointing at the moon with a finger: the moon is not the finger. Understand and not understand—South Mountain and North Mountain turn beneath pouring rain.⁴