Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings (64 page)

Deshan said to his fellow practitioners, “It’s like a feather falling into the ocean. The ocean’s nature is unchanged. It’s like throwing a seed against a sharp blade, the blade is not dulled by it. Whether one studies or not, it is only oneself that knows.”

Later, when Deshan heard that the Southern school of Zen was flourishing, he railed against it, saying, “Those who leave home may study the great meaning of Buddhism for a thousand kalpas and spend a further ten thousand kalpas performing detailed Buddhist practice, yet they still won’t become a buddha. How dare those southern devils say that just by pointing at the human mind one can see self-nature and attain buddhahood? I’ll go drag them from their caves and exterminate their ilk, and thus repay the kindness of Buddha!”

With copies of the Qinglong commentaries on his back, Deshan set out from Min.
¹¹⁹
As he traveled on the road in Liyang he came upon an old woman selling dim sum. Stopping to rest, Deshan bought a small meal.

The old woman pointed at his bundle and asked, “What are those books?”

Deshan said, “They’re the Qinglong commentaries.”

The old woman said, “What sutra do they expound on?”

Deshan said, “The Diamond Sutra.”

Then the old woman said, “I have a question for you. If you answer it right then I’ll donate the dumpling to you. If you can’t answer then you must go elsewhere. In the Diamond Sutra it says, ‘The bygone mind can’t be attained. The present mind can’t be attained. The future mind can’t be attained.’ I want to know, monk, what mind are you revealing right now?”
¹²⁰

Deshan was speechless.

Deshan then went to see Longtan. Arriving in the Dharma hall, he said, “Long have I heard of Long Tan [in Chinese, “Dragon Marsh”]. But arriving here, I’ve seen no marsh, nor is there any dragon to be seen.”

Longtan said, “Now you have seen Dragon Marsh.”

Deshan said nothing, but remained there.

One evening as Deshan visited Longtan in his room, Longtan said, “It’s getting late. You should go now.”

Deshan said goodbye and started to go out. He then turned and said, “It’s dark outside.”

Longtan lit a paper candle and gave it to Deshan. Just as Deshan reached to take it, Longtan blew it out. At that moment Deshan experienced great enlightenment. He then bowed deeply.

Longtan said, “What have you seen?”

Deshan said, “From this day forward, I’ll never again doubt the words of the old monk under heaven [Buddha].”

The next day, Longtan entered the hall and addressed the monks, saying, “Among you there’s a fellow whose teeth are like a sword tree and whose mouth is like a bowl of blood. Striking him with the stick will not turn his head. Someday he will go to a solitary peak and establish what I’ve said there!”

Deshan then placed his commentaries in a pile in front of the Dharma hall. Lifting a candle he said, “All the mysterious doctrines are but a speck of dust in a vast void. All the great affairs of the world are but a drop of water cast into a boundless chasm.”

Deshan then set fire to the books.

Deshan paid his respects to Longtan and proceeded to Mt. Gui [Zen master Guishan Lingyou’s monastery]. There, Deshan went directly to the Dharma hall where, his traveling garment tucked under his arm, he entered the hall and walked first from the west side to the east side, then from east to west.

He then faced the abbot [Guishan] and said, “Is it here? Is it here?”

Guishan then sat down in meditation and did not pay special attention to Deshan.

Deshan said, “No! No!”

Deshan then walked out of the hall to the gate of the monastery. At the gate he stopped and said, “Although it’s this way, still I shouldn’t be so crude.”

Deshan then went back to see Guishan with proper decorum.

Stepping through the door of the hall, Deshan raised a sitting cushion and said, “Master!”

Guishan began to pick up his whisk when Deshan suddenly shouted, shook his sleeves, and went out.

That evening Guishan said to the head monk, “Is that fellow who came today still here or not?”

The head monk said, “When he went out of the Dharma hall he put on his sandals and left.”

Guishan said, “Later on this disciple will go and build a grass hut on a solitary mountain peak where he’ll revile the buddhas and curse the ancestors.”

Zen master Deshan Xuanjian entered the hall and addressed the monks, saying, “If you have no affairs of the self, then you have no delusive craving. That which is obtained through delusive craving is not obtained. If you have no affairs in your mind, nor mind in your affairs, then you are unoccupied yet animated, empty, and wondrous. But if you allow yourself to stray from this upright state, all words will deceive you. Why is this?

“When bound by the slightest thought, you have entered the hell realms. A single glimpse of your impulsive life and you’ll be bound tightly for ten thousand kalpas. The words ‘sacred’ and ‘ordinary’ are just empty talk. ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ appearances are just hallucinations. If you’re constantly striving for these things will you not become exhausted? If you become belabored in this manner it will be a disaster. The result cannot be good.”

A monk asked Deshan, “What is bodhi?”

Deshan struck him and said, “Get out! Don’t defecate here!”

The monk asked, “What is Buddha?”

Deshan said, “An old mendicant in India.”

Xuefeng Yicun asked Zen master Deshan, “Can I understand the great teaching of the ancients or not?”

Deshan struck Xuefeng and said, “What?”

Xuefeng said, “I don’t understand.”

The next day Xuefeng again came for instruction.

Deshan said, “My teaching has neither words nor phrases. It is actually without a Dharma that may be given to others.”

At these words Xuefeng experienced enlightenment.

When Yantou heard about this, he said, “Old Deshan’s backbone was as hard as iron. It couldn’t be bent. Even so, within his Dharma gate there are quite a few students.”

Deshan said to the monks, “If you speak, you get thirty blows. If you don’t speak, you get thirty blows.”

When Linji Yixuan heard this, he said to Luopu, “Go there and ask him, ‘If I speak why do I still get thirty blows?’ When he hits you, grab the staff and give it a shove. Then see what he does.”

As instructed by Linji, Luopu went and questioned Deshan. Deshan struck him. Luopu grabbed the staff and gave it a shove. Deshan went back to his room.

Luopu returned and related these events to Linji, who said, “Formerly I had doubts about that fellow. Despite what happened, did you see Deshan or not?”

Luopu hesitated, not knowing what to say. Linji struck him. (Yantou said, “Old Deshan usually just relied on a white staff. If the Buddha came he hit him. If an ancestor came he hit him. Nevertheless he had many students.”)

Deshan said to the monks, “As soon as you ask, you have erred. If you don’t ask you’re also wrong.”

A monk came forward and bowed. Deshan struck him.

The monk said, “I just bowed. Why did you hit me?”

Deshan said, “What use would it be to wait until you opened your mouth?”

Deshan entered the hall and addressed the monks, saying, “I don’t hold to some view about the ancestors. Here, there are no ancestors and no buddhas. Bodhidharma is an old stinking foreigner. Shakyamuni is a dried piece of excrement. Manjushri and Samantabhadra are dung carriers. What is known as ‘realizing the mystery’ is nothing but breaking through to grab an ordinary person’s life. ‘Bodhi’ and ‘nirvana’ are a donkey’s tethering post. The twelve divisions of scriptural canon are devils’ texts; just paper for wiping infected skin boils. The four fruitions and the three virtuous states, original mind and the ten stages, these are just graveyard-guarding ghosts.
¹²¹
They’ll never save you.”