[Original Text of the Koan]

One day, the master said to Zhao Juji, “If this old monk were suddenly to withdraw, and someone else came to teach you Chan—how would you understand this turn of conditions? And how would you understand that turn? … Douse him with hot shit! Remember this.”

[Sawing Apart a Steelyard Weight]

One day, Chan Master Dahui Zonggao said to Zhao Juji: “If I were to step down and no longer teach Chan, and someone else came to teach you Chan—explaining how to understand this koan and how to understand that koan … then splash him with hot excrement! Remember what I have said.”

Dahui’s teacher, Chan Master Foguo Yuanwu Keqin, lectured on the Blue Cliff Record and explained one hundred koans. After it was compiled into a book, it swept through Chan monasteries. Why did it become so popular in the monasteries? Because the Blue Cliff Record can indeed open the gate to awakening. Yet when things reach an extreme, they reverse: if one becomes caught in endless intellectual understanding, it closes the gate to awakening again. Thus, in Dahui’s generation, the printing blocks of the Blue Cliff Record were consigned to the flames. When he said this to Zhao Juji, he may have burned the blocks only shortly before.

Explaining koans can only serve as a tool for opening the mind. Once it has been used, discard it; how can it be set up as a theory? Whoever takes straw dogs that have already been set out and lies beneath them will surely be deluded!

[Related Links]

xixi: I wonder what Chan that old monk taught before he stepped down~ Shancai 21:34:18 7/12/02 (26)

^o^ lvm 21:40:18 7/12/02 (no content)

Words are originally expedient means gentleLion 21:13:09 7/12/02 (71)