2Zhaozhou's "Nothing Hard About It"

Introduction 垂示

乾坤窄，日月星辰一時黑。直饒棒如雨點，喝似雷奔，也未當得向上宗乘中事。設使三世諸佛，只可自知；歷代祖師全提不起；一大藏教詮注不及；明眼衲僧自救不了。到這裏，作麼生請益？道箇佛字，拖泥帶水；道箇禪字，滿面慚惶。久參上士不待言之，後學初機直須究取。

Heaven and earth cramp shut. Sun, moon, and stars all go black at once. Even if blows fell like rain and shouts cracked like thunder, none of it would touch the matter of the highest teaching. The Buddhas of past, present, and future know it only for themselves. Generations of masters cannot haul it up whole. The whole canon of scripture cannot reach it with all its notes. Here a clear-eyed monk cannot even save himself. So how, at this point, do you ask for instruction? Say the word "Buddha" and you drag through mud. Say the word "Zen" and your face burns with shame. Old hands who have trained for years don't wait to be told. Beginners just starting out must dig in and get it.

趙州示眾云：「至道無難，唯嫌揀擇。纔有語言，是揀擇，是明白。老僧不在明白裏，是汝還護惜也無？」時有僧問：「既不在明白裏，護惜箇什麼？」州云：「我亦不知。」僧云：「和尚既不知，為什麼却道不在明白裏？」州云：「問事即得，禮拜了退。」

Zhaozhou spoke to the assembly: "The real Way is not hard. It only hates picking and choosing. The moment you speak, that is picking, that is clarity. But I don't dwell in clarity. So tell me: do you still hold anything dear, or not?"

A monk asked, "If you don't dwell in clarity, what is there to hold dear?"

Zhaozhou said, "I don't know that either."

The monk said, "If you don't know, master, why do you say you don't dwell in clarity?"

Zhaozhou said, "You've asked your question. Now bow and step back."

Verse 頌

至道無難，言端語端。一有多種，二無兩般。天際日上月下，檻前山深水寒。髑髏識盡喜何立，枯木龍吟銷未乾。難，難，揀擇明白君自看。

The real Way is not hard:
straight talk, straight words.
One thing wears a thousand faces;
two has no second side.
At the sky's edge the sun climbs, the moon goes down.
Past the railing the mountains run deep, the water cold.
When the skull's knowing runs dry, where can joy take hold?
The dead tree hums with the dragon, the life in it not yet gone.
Hard, hard.
Picking, choosing, clarity: see for yourself.

Pointer

Zhaozhou (778–897) was an old Chinese teacher prized for plain, needling talk, and here he quotes a line everyone in the hall already knew, from the Xinxinming: the real Way is not hard, it only hates picking and choosing. Picking and choosing is the mind's endless sorting into this and that, holy and ordinary, right and wrong. The twist is that "clarity," the warm sense that you have finally understood and settled into the truth, is just one more thing the sorting mind reaches for, so Zhaozhou says he does not even live there. A monk tries to trap him by logic, and Zhaozhou slips it twice, first with "I don't know that either," then by simply ending the exchange: you asked, now bow and step back. He will not let his answer harden into a position you could grip, because gripping a position is picking and choosing wearing a calmer face. You meet the same Xinxinming line again at case 59.