【50】Yunmen’s Samādhi in Every Particle of Dust

Pointer: Transcending all ranks and utterly surpassing expedient means, each capacity responds to each capacity, and every phrase accords with every phrase. Unless one has entered the gate of great liberation and gained the great function of liberation, how could one assess the Buddhas and patriarchs or serve as a model for the schools and vehicles? Tell me: when confronting the occasion directly and decisively, moving freely in adversity and accord, vertically and horizontally, how does one utter the phrase of emergence? Please raise it and examine it.

【50】Case:

A monk asked Yunmen, “What is the samādhi in every particle of dust?” (Monks everywhere make a nest here. Their mouths are full of frost. Why scatter sand and dirt?)

Yunmen said, “Rice in the bowl, water in the bucket.” (A cloth sack stuffed with awls. Gold sand mixed with gravel. Making the best of a mistake. Within the Hanyuan Hall, one does not ask about Chang’an.)

Can you determine it? If you can, Yunmen’s nostrils are in your hands. If you cannot, your nostrils are in Yunmen’s hands. Yunmen had a phrase as decisive as cutting through a nail and severing iron; within this one phrase are contained three phrases. When some people are asked, they immediately say, “Every grain of rice in the bowl is round; every drop of water in the bucket is manifest.” If you understand it this way, you still have not seen where Yunmen truly worked for others.

Verse:

Rice in the bowl, water in the bucket— (It is exposed already. Why scatter sand and dirt? Only after rinsing your mouth for three years will you attain it.)

A talkative master is hard to get one’s teeth into. (Pull your tongue back. Those who know the Dharma are wary. Why then present it in this way?)

The Northern Dipper and the Southern Star do not differ in their positions; (Why call east west? Sitting and standing are solemnly distinct. The tall have tall Dharma bodies; the short have short Dharma bodies.)

White waves tower to the sky, rising on level ground. (Several fathoms deep beneath your feet. Host and guest exchange places. Suddenly it is upon your head—what then will you do? Strike!)

Do you deliberate or not? (Blue heavens! Blue heavens! Bah!)

Do you stop or not? (What are you saying? You only add to your resentment and suffering.)

Every one of them is an elder’s son without trousers. (There is no shortage of disarray. Onlookers sneer.)

Earlier, Xuedou praised Yunmen’s saying, “In responding to one, I speak,” with the words: “In responding to one, I speak—utterly solitary and exceptional; drive a wedge deep into an iron hammer without a hole.” Later, he praised Mazu’s saying, “Separate from the four propositions and cutting off the hundred negations,” with the words: “The head of the storehouse is white, the head of the sea is black; monks with clear eyes cannot comprehend it.” If you penetrate this koan, you will then see this verse.

Xuedou immediately begins, “Rice in the bowl, water in the bucket”: the words contain resonance, and the phrase reveals the potential.

“A talkative master is hard to get one’s teeth into”—thereupon he provides you with a footnote. If you seek profundity and subtlety here, calculating doctrines, it becomes all the harder to get one’s teeth into. Xuedou could have stopped here, but he preferred first to hold fast at the summit, fearing that someone in the assembly with eyes might see through it. Later, he had to make one further move: bending down for beginners, he opened up the verse so that people could see.

The Northern Dipper remains in the north, and the Southern Star remains only in the south. Thus it is said: “The Northern Dipper and the Southern Star do not differ in their positions; white waves tower to the sky, rising on level ground.” Suddenly, waves arise on level ground—what then will you do? It is easy if you look at it on the level of phenomena; but if you seek beneath the mind faculty, in the end you cannot feel about and grasp it.

This is like an iron stake: you cannot move it, nor can you insert a word into it. If you deliberate, wishing to understand yet failing to understand, wishing to stop yet failing to stop, and wildly display a bag of muddle, that is precisely to be “every one an elder’s son without trousers.” A poem by Hanshan says: “The six extremes constantly bring suffering; / The nine dimensions are discussed in vain. / Those with talent are left amid grass and marsh; / Those without influence are shut behind thatched gates. / Though the sun rises, the cliffs remain dark; / Though the smoke clears, the valleys are still dim. / Among them are elders’ sons— / Every one altogether without trousers.”

【Heart-Monk】: Make the best of a mistake.

A monk asked Yunmen, “What is the samādhi in every particle of dust?”

This monk was so utterly muddled. How could this not itself be the samādhi in every particle of dust?

Yunmen said, “Rice in the bowl, water in the bucket.”

Though there was no shortage of disarray, it nevertheless barely managed to stop his mouth.

【Dingling】: Teacher, what does the Hanshan poem in there mean?

【lvm】: It identifies the source of Xuedou’s line, “Every one of them is an elder’s son without trousers.”

A poem by Hanshan says:

The six extremes constantly bring suffering; the nine dimensions are discussed in vain.

Those with talent are left amid grass and marsh; those without influence are shut behind thatched gates.

Though the sun rises, the cliffs remain dark; though the smoke clears, the valleys are still dim.

Among them are elders’ sons—every one altogether without trousers.

Xuedou’s verse says:

Rice in the bowl, water in the bucket; a talkative master is hard to get one’s teeth into.

The Northern Dipper and the Southern Star do not differ in their positions; white waves tower to the sky, rising on level ground.

Do you deliberate or not? Do you stop or not? Every one of them is an elder’s son without trousers.

[Dingling]: The character 裈 cannot be found in the dictionary.

【Sudhana】: Haha, from the look of it, it seems to mean “trousers.”

【Dingling】: Hey, what does that mean?

【Sudhana】: Perhaps it means naked and bare, clean and unadorned, innocent and guileless.

【True-and-False Great Emptiness】: Look it up in Kingsoft PowerWord.

裈, also written as 裩: trousers with a full crotch, distinguished from crotchless outer trousers [trousers].

“Xiangru himself wore calf-nose trousers and worked together with Baoyong.” —Records of the Grand Historian

Also, for example: kunmao (trousers and cap); kunyi (underclothes); kunshi (a louse in one’s trousers, a metaphor for a hypocritical, pedantic, ritual-bound ‘gentleman’ seeking fame).

kūn

(褌) kūn

An ancient term for trousers: trouser crotch. “A louse dwelling in one’s trousers” is a metaphor for shallow understanding.

【Dingling】: Teacher, how should one understand “The tall have tall Dharma bodies; the short have short Dharma bodies”? Hahaha.

【lvm】: It is easy if you look at it on the level of phenomena; but if you seek beneath the mind faculty, in the end you cannot feel about and grasp it.

【Sudhana】: If one must liberate Dingling by means of Dingling’s body, one speaks the Dharma by means of Dingling’s body.

【Dingling】: Their mouths are full of frost. Why scatter sand and dirt?

【Sudhana】: A thief may be petty, yet his wit surpasses that of a gentleman.

【120ffhb】 (replying to 【Dingling】: “Their mouths are full of frost. Why scatter sand and dirt?”): The hawk has already flown past Silla.

【Sudhana】: Haha, majestic beard and brows stand forth openly; in walking and sitting, one cannot yet reckon long and short.

Haha,

Majestic beard and brows stand forth openly; in walking and sitting, one cannot yet reckon long and short;

The cloth robe of Qingzhou cannot contain him; suddenly, by the Eastern River, he becomes a boatman plying an oar.

【Iron Broom】: Where are Yunmen’s nostrils?

【lvm】: Hold off on wielding the broom!

【Moon】: Gold sand mixed with gravel—make the best of a mistake. Even here, one must have discerning eyes in order not to be deceived by old Yunmen.

【Iron Broom】: What about after making the move? (Three replies follow.)

【Moon】 replies: Within the Hanyuan Hall, one does not ask about Chang’an.

【Dingling】 replies: Ash-headed and dirt-faced.

【lvm】 replies: Do not stir up the rice in the bowl and the water in the bucket.