Zen's Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings (69 page)

Yunju said, “Daoying.”

Dongshan said, “Look up and then say it.”

Yunju said, “If I look up, then there’s nothing named ‘Daoying.’”

Dongshan said, “You talk just like I did when I spoke with Daowu.”

Yunju asked Dongshan, “What was the First Ancestor’s intention?”

Dongshan answered, “Behind him was a reed hat.”

Dongshan asked Yunju, “If suddenly a monk asked, ‘Your Reverence?’ How would you answer?”

Yunju said, “My fault.”

Once, Dongshan said to Yunju, “I heard that a monk named ‘Great Thought’ was reborn in the Kingdom of Wei and became the king. Is this true or not?”

“If his name was ‘Great Thought,’ then even the Buddha couldn’t do it.”

Dongshan agreed.

One day Dongshan asked, “Where are you going?”

Yunju said, “Tramping on the mountain.”

Dongshan said, “How can the mountain endure?”

Yunju said, “How can it not endure?”

Dongshan said, “If you go on like this, then you’ll eventually teach the whole country.”

Yunju said, “No, I won’t.”

Dongshan said, “If you go on like this, then your disciples will gain a way of entrance.”

Yunju said, “No such way.”

Dongshan said, “No such way? I challenge you to show me.”

Yunju said, “If there’s such a path, then I’ll leave you immediately to go on it.”

Dongshan said, “In the future, a thousand or ten thousand people won’t be able to grab this disciple.”

Yunju was crossing a river with Dongshan.

Dongshan said, “How deep is it?”

Yunju said, “It’s not wet.”

Dongshan said, “You rustic!”

Yunju said, “What would you say, Master?”

Dongshan said, “Not dry.”

Zen master Nanquan once asked a monk, “What sutra are you reading?”

The monk said, “The Rebirth of Maitreya Sutra.”

Nanquan said, “When will Maitreya be reborn?”

The monk said, “Now he’s in Tushita Heaven. He’ll be reborn in the future.”

Nanquan said, “Up above there’s no Maitreya. Down below there’s no Maitreya.”

Yunju said to Dongshan, “Up above there’s no Maitreya. Down below there’s no Maitreya. I don’t understand to whom this name applies.”

When Yunju asked Dongshan this question, Dongshan shook the meditation platform.

Then Dongshan said, “Worthy Ying! When I was at Yunyan’s I once asked him something and he shook the stove. Today, when you asked me this question, my entire body broke out in a sweat!”

Yunju built a cottage on nearby Sanfeng peak. For ten days thereafter he didn’t return to the monk’s hall.

Dongshan asked him, “Why haven’t you come to meals lately?”

Yunju said, “Every day a heavenly spirit brings me food.”

Dongshan said, “I say you’re a person. Why do you still have such an understanding? Come see me tonight!”

That evening when Yunju came to see Dongshan, Dongshan called out to him, “Hermit Ying!”

Yunju answered, “Yes?”

Dongshan said, “Not thinking of good and not thinking of evil, what is
it
?”

Yunju went back to his cottage and sat in Zen meditation. Because of this the god couldn’t find him, and after three days did not come again.

Yunju entered the hall and addressed the monks. He quoted an ancient teacher, saying, “‘Hell is not a great misery. The greatest misery is to wear these clothes but not understand the great matter.’ You here who have embarked on this undertaking, you’ve gone only nine-tenths of the way. If you show a little more spirit, then you monks won’t spend your whole life on pilgrimage and you won’t forsake our order. An ancient said, ‘If you take on the responsibility of this affair, you must stand on top of the highest peak, and you must walk on the bottom of the deepest ocean, then you’ll have a disciple’s resolution.’”

A monk asked Zen master Yunju Daoying, “What is the one Dharma?”

Yunju said, “What are the ten thousand dharmas?”

The monk said, “I don’t understand how to comprehend this.”

Yunju said, “The one Dharma is your own mind. The ten thousand dharmas are your fundamental nature. Are they one thing or two?”

The monk bowed.

Yunju showed the monk a poem that said:

The single Dharma is the essence of all dharmas.
The myriad dharmas penetrate the one Dharma.
“Mind-only” and “nature-only,”
Don’t say they’re different or the same.