61Fengxue's Speck of Dust

Introduction 垂示

建法幢，立宗旨，還他本分宗師；定龍蛇，別緇素，須是作家知識。劍刃上論殺活，棒頭上別機宜，則且置。且道：獨據寰中事，一句作麼生商量？試舉看。

To raise the banner and set the teaching's course takes a real master. To tell dragons from snakes, the holy from the worldly, takes an expert eye. On the sword's edge he weighs life and death; with the staff he reads what each moment calls for. Set all that aside. Tell me: when one man holds the whole realm in his grip, how do you handle that single line? Here's a case to test you.

風穴垂語云：「若立一塵，家國興盛；不立一塵，家國喪亡。」雪竇拈拄杖云：「還有同生同死底衲僧麼？」

Fengxue gave a teaching: "Set up one speck of dust and the country thrives. Leave that speck of dust out and the country falls."

Xuedou held up his staff and said, "Are there any monks here who'd live and die right alongside him?"

Verse 頌

野老從教不展眉，
且圖家國立雄基。
謀臣猛將今何在，
萬里清風只自知。

Let the old farmer keep his furrowed brow,
let him fret over the harvest and the land.
The cunning ministers, the fierce generals—where are they now?
A clean wind, ten thousand miles. It knows, and no one else.

Pointer

Fengxue and Xuedou are Chan teachers down the line; the intro is just hyping how sharp you have to be to play. The "speck of dust" is the whole gambit. Set up even one tiny thing, make one distinction, plant one rule, raise one banner, and you've got a working country, civilization with all its machinery humming. Leave that speck out and the apparatus collapses into nothing. So which is it, the busy thriving kingdom or the empty quiet? Both sound right, and Fengxue won't tell you, which is the trap. Then Xuedou lifts his staff and asks whether anyone present has the nerve to go all the way with this, to stand or fall beside the master instead of nodding along. The verse turns it once more: forget the scheming ministers and war heroes who built the kingdom, they're long gone, and what outlasts them is the clean wind that needed none of it.