Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings (23 page)

When Huangbo heard this, he stuck out his tongue.

Baizhang said to him, “In the future, will you carry on Mazu’s Dharma?”

Huangbo said, “There’s no way I could do so. Today, because of what you’ve said, I’ve seen Mazu’s great function, but I still haven’t glimpsed Mazu. If I carry on Mazu’s teaching, then our descendants will be cut off.”

Baizhang said, “Just so! Just so! The one who is his teacher’s equal has diminished his teacher by half. Only a student who surpasses his teacher can transmit his teacher’s teaching. So how does the student surpass the teacher?”

Huangbo then bowed.

Baizhang taught and resided as abbot and taught on Daxiong (“Great Hero”) Mountain, which was also known as Mt. Bai Zhang in what is now Fengxin County in Jiangxi Province.

Besides being a Zen master of the first order, Baizhang established the monastic rules of Zen monasteries, partly on the model of the Fourth Ancestor, Dayi Daoxin. Prior to Baizhang’s times, many Zen monks lived in temples constructed by other branches of Buddhism. Influenced by Baizhang’s instructions, Zen temples evolved to be more self-supporting and independent. Zen communities upheld Baizhang’s famous dictum, “A day without work is a day without eating.”

A monk asked, “How can a person gain freedom?”

Baizhang said, “If you attain it at this moment then you’ve attained it. If you can instantly cut off the emotions of the self, the five desires and winds of attachment, the greed and covetousness, the pollution and purity, that is to say, all delusive thoughts, then you’ll be like the sun and the moon hanging in space, purely shining—the mind like wood and stone; thoughts spared from worldly entrapments; like a great elephant crossing a river, engulfed in the rapids but taking no missteps. Heaven and hell can’t pull in such a person. When that person reads a sutra or observes a teaching, the words return to the person. The person knows that all teachings with words are only a reflection of the immediacy of self-nature and are just meant to guide you. Such teachings don’t penetrate the revolving realms of existence and nonexistence. Only Diamond Wisdom penetrates the revolving realms of existence and nonexistence, and thus constitutes complete, independent freedom.

“If you don’t understand in this manner and just go on chanting the Vedic scriptures, then you’re just making matters worse, and moreover you’re slandering Buddha.
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This is not practice.

“But to be separate from all sound and form, though not abiding in the separateness, and not abiding in intellectual comprehension, this is the true practice of reading sutras and observing the teachings. One who lets the world be as it is, always acting in countless situations with clear rectitude, this is one who has truly cut off the passions.”

Every day when Zen master Baizhang spoke in the hall, there was an old man who would attend along with the assembly. One day when the congregation had departed, the old man remained.

Baizhang asked him, “Who are you?”

The old man said, “I’m not a person. Formerly, during the age of Kasyapa Buddha, I was the abbot of a monastery on this mountain. At that time a student asked me, ‘Does a great adept fall into cause and effect or not?’ I answered, saying, ‘A great adept does not fall into cause and effect.’ Thereafter, for five hundred lifetimes I’ve been reborn in the body of a fox. Now I ask that the master say a turning phrase in my behalf, so that I can shed the fox’s body.”

Baizhang said, “Ask the question.”

The old man said, “Does a great adept fall into cause and effect or not?”

Baizhang said, “A great adept is not blind to cause and effect.”

Upon hearing these words, the old man experienced unsurpassed enlightenment. He then said, “Now I have shed the body of a fox. I lived behind the mountain. Please provide funeral services for a monk who has died.”

Baizhang then instructed the temple director to tell the monks to assemble after the next meal for funeral services. The monks were all mystified by this, because there was no one who was ill in the temple infirmary, so how could this be? After the meal, Baizhang instructed the monks to assemble beneath a grotto behind the mountain. He then brought out the body of a dead fox on his staff, and proceeded to cremate it according to established ritual. That evening Baizhang entered the hall to speak, and brought up for discussion what had transpired.

Huangbo asked, “When this ancient spoke a single phrase incorrectly, he fell into rebirth for five hundred lifetimes in the body of a fox. Originally, had he answered correctly, what would have happened?”

Baizhang said, “Come here and I’ll tell you.”

Huangbo came forward and then hit Baizhang.

Baizhang laughed and clapped his hands, saying, “It’s said that the barbarian’s beard is red. But there’s yet another red-bearded barbarian!” ([Later,] Guishan brought this case up to Yangshan. Yangshan said, “Huangbo always had this ability.” Guishan said, “Do you say he had it naturally, or did he get it from other people?” Yangshan said, “Some of it he got from his teacher, and some of it was his own ability.” Guishan said, “Just so. Just so.” Once, when Guishan was acting as head cook at Baizhang’s temple, the mendicant Sima asked him concerning this affair, saying, “What was it about?” Guishan shook the door screen three times. Sima said, “Too crude.” Guishan said, “That isn’t the meaning of the Buddhadharma.”)

Baizhang said, “I want someone to go and tell something to Xitang [Zen master Xitang Zhizang].”

Wufeng said, “I’ll go.”

Baizhang said, “How will you speak to him?”

Wufeng said, “ I’ll wait until I see Xitang, then I’ll speak.”

Baizhang said, “What will you say?”

Wufeng said, “When I come back, I’ll tell you.”

Zen master Baizhang entered the hall to give a lecture. When the monks had assembled, he suddenly leaped off of the Dharma seat and drove them from the hall with his staff. Just as they were running out of the hall, he called to them. When they turned around he said, “What is it?”
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In the everyday work of the monastery, Baizhang always was foremost among the assembly at undertaking the tasks of the day. The monks in charge of the work were concerned about the master. They hid his tools and asked him to rest.

Baizhang said, “I’m unworthy. How can I allow others to work in my behalf?”

He looked everywhere for his tools but was unable to find them. He even forgot to eat [while looking for his tools], and thus the phrase “a day without working is a day without eating” has become known everywhere.

The master died on the seventeenth day of the first month in [the year 814]. He received the posthumous name “Zen Master Great Wisdom.” His stupa was named “Great Treasure Victorious Wheel.”