67Fu Dashi Expounds the Sutra

梁武帝請傅大士講金剛經。大士便於座上揮案一下，便下座。武帝愕然。誌公問：「陛下還會麼？」帝云：「不會。」誌公云：「大士講經竟。」

Emperor Wu of Liang asked Fu Dashi to expound the Diamond Sutra. Fu Dashi climbed onto the seat, rapped the desk once, and stepped down. The emperor sat there stunned. Master Zhi asked him, "Did you get it, Your Majesty?"

The emperor said, "No."

Master Zhi said, "Fu Dashi is done expounding the sutra."

Verse 頌

不向雙林寄此身，
却於梁土惹埃塵。
當時不得誌公老，
也是栖栖去國人。

He didn't keep to Twin Forests and stay put;
he came to Liang instead and kicked up dust.
Had Old Master Zhi not been on hand that day,
he'd be one more restless soul run out of the land.

Pointer

Emperor Wu of Liang was a devout Buddhist ruler who loved having famous teachers lecture him, the same emperor Bodhidharma stonewalls back in case 1. Fu Dashi was a celebrated lay master, and Twin Forests is where he lived. The Diamond Sutra hammers on one theme: grasping at words and forms misses the point. So when Fu is asked to expound it, he climbs up, raps the desk once, and walks off, and that thump is the entire sermon. The emperor doesn't catch it; Master Zhi, standing by, has to announce that the lecture is already over. The verse ribs Fu a little, that by coming to court to perform a no-teaching he muddied his own hands, and only Zhi's quick save kept him from looking like a fraud who got run out of town. The teaching is real, the joke is that it needed a second man to point out that nothing was the point.