13Baling's Snow in a Silver Bowl

Introduction 垂示

雲凝大野，遍界不藏；雪覆蘆花，難分朕迹。冷處冷如氷雪，細處細如米末。深深處佛眼難窺，密密處魔外莫測。舉一明三即且止，坐斷天下人舌頭，作麼生道？且道是什麼人分上事？試舉看。

Clouds bank over the open plain, and nothing in the whole world stays hidden. Snow buries the white reeds, and now you can't tell one from the other. In the cold places, cold as ice and snow. In the fine places, fine as ground rice. So deep a buddha's eye can't find the bottom. So tight no demon or outsider can take its measure. Forget "show one corner and they grab the other three." This cuts the tongues out of everyone on earth. So how do you say it? And tell me, whose business is this anyway? Let's look.

僧問巴陵：「如何是提婆宗？」巴陵云：「銀椀裏盛雪。」

A monk asked Baling, "What is the school of Kanadeva?"

Baling said, "Snow heaped in a silver bowl."

Verse 頌

老新開，
端的別。
解道銀椀裏盛雪，
九十六箇應自知。
不知却問天邊月。
提婆宗，提婆宗，
赤旛之下起清風。

The old Reopener,
he truly stood apart.
Snow heaped in a silver bowl: he nailed it.
The ninety-six should work it out themselves.
Those who can't, go ask the moon at the edge of the sky.
The school of Kanadeva. The school of Kanadeva!
Under the red banner, a clean wind rises.

Pointer

Kanadeva (Aryadeva) was an Indian master, student of the great Nagarjuna, remembered for one talent: he could out-argue anyone, demolishing the rival non-Buddhist schools of his day, which tradition tallies at ninety-six, by sheer command of words. So the monk asking "What is the school of Kanadeva" is asking what beats at the heart of that knife-edged teaching. Baling answers with snow heaped in a silver bowl, white set on white. From across the room the snow and the bowl dissolve into one; up close they are plainly two. That single image is the whole game, sameness and difference holding still together, present and not present, the kind of point that wins by declining to come down on either side. The "red banner" at the end is the victor's flag; raise it and a clean wind starts to blow. Look at how the answer refuses to resolve and still settles the question.