11Huangbo's Dreg-Slurpers

Introduction 垂示

佛祖大機，全歸掌握；人天命脈，悉受指呼。等閑一句一言，驚群動眾；一機一境，打鎖敲枷。接向上機，提向上事。且道：什麼人曾恁麼來？還有知落處麼？試舉看。

The whole machinery of the buddhas and ancestors sits in his grip. The lifeline of every being passes through his hands and answers when he calls. A throwaway word, a single phrase, and the crowd jumps. One move, one setup, and the locks are smashed, the chains knocked off. He meets you at the top and hands you the highest business. So tell me, who ever walked in like that? Does anyone know where it lands? Let's look.

黃檗示眾云：「汝等諸人，盡是噇酒糟漢。恁麼行脚，何處有今日？還知大唐國裏無禪師麼？」時有僧出云：「只如諸方匡徒領眾，又作麼生？」檗云：「不道無禪，只是無師。」

Huangbo addressed the assembly: "Every last one of you is slurping the dregs. Travel around like this and where will today ever come from? Don't you know there isn't a single Zen teacher in all of China?"

A monk stepped forward: "Then what about all the masters running monasteries and leading communities everywhere?"

Huangbo said: "I didn't say there's no Zen. I said there's no teacher."

Verse 頌

凜凜孤風不自誇，
端居寰海定龍蛇。
大中天子曾輕觸，
三度親遭弄爪牙。

A cold, lone wind, and never a boast.
At the center of the world he sat, weighing dragons and snakes.
The emperor himself once brushed against him,
three times caught bare-handed by claw and fang.

Pointer

Huangbo was a heavyweight Tang teacher, in Mazu's line and the man who trained Linji, founder of the Linji (Rinzai) house, so his contempt carries weight. Telling a hall full of monks they are all "slurping the dregs" means feeding on other people's leftover enlightenment, parroting awakening they never tasted, and from him it stings. The live edge is his last line. He says there is not one Zen teacher in all of China; the monk reasonably points to the famous masters running monasteries everywhere; and Huangbo refuses to soften it, granting plenty of Zen but no teachers. The verse points to a legend that the future Emperor Xuanzong, hiding out as a young novice, took three slaps from Huangbo, those being the "claws and fangs." The thing worth chewing on is the gap he is opening between Zen that fills the temples and a teacher who hands you nothing and flatters you not at all.