89Hands and Eyes All Over

Introduction 垂示

通身是眼，見不到；通身是耳，聞不及；通身是口，說不著；通身是心，鑒不出。通身即且止，忽若無眼，作麼生見？無耳，作麼生聞？無口，作麼生說？無心，作麼生鑒？若向箇裏撥轉得一線道，便與古佛同參。參則且止，且道：參箇什麼人？

Your whole body is eyes, yet you cannot see it. Your whole body is ears, yet you cannot hear it. Your whole body is a mouth, yet you cannot speak it. Your whole body is mind, yet you cannot grasp it. Set the whole body aside. Suppose you had no eyes: how would you see? No ears: how would you hear? No mouth: how would you speak? No mind: how would you grasp? Find a single thread of a way through here, and you study alongside the old buddhas. Forget studying with them. Tell me, who is it you study?

雲巖問道吾：「大悲菩薩用許多手眼作什麼？」吾云：「如人夜半背手摸枕子。」巖云：「我會也。」吾云：「汝作麼生會？」巖云：「遍身是手眼。」吾云：「道即太殺道，只道得八成。」巖云：「師兄作麼生？」吾云：「通身是手眼。」

Yunyan asked Daowu, "That bodhisattva of Great Compassion, what does she do with so many hands and eyes?"
Daowu said, "Like someone reaching back in the dead of night to straighten the pillow."
Yunyan said, "I understand."
Daowu said, "What do you understand?"
Yunyan said, "Hands and eyes all over the body."
Daowu said, "Well said, but you've only got eight-tenths."
Yunyan said, "And you, brother?"
Daowu said, "Hands and eyes through and through."

Verse 頌

遍身是，
通身是。
拈來猶較十萬里，
展翅鵬騰六合雲，
搏風鼓蕩四溟水。
是何埃壒兮忽生，
那箇毫釐兮未止。
君不見，
網珠垂範影重重，
棒頭手眼從何起？
咄！

All over the body.
Through and through.
Say it, and you're a hundred thousand miles off.
The great bird spreads its wings, riding clouds across the six directions,
beating the wind, churning the four seas.
What speck of dust is this, suddenly born?
What hair's-breadth thing has yet to come to rest?
Don't you see:
Indra's net hangs down, reflection within reflection.
The hands and eyes on the tip of the staff, where do they begin?
Bah!

Pointer

The bodhisattva of Great Compassion is Guanyin, often pictured with a thousand arms and an eye in every palm, compassion that reaches everywhere and sees everything at once. Two monk brothers, Yunyan and Daowu, are batting around what that image actually means. Daowu's answer slips past the spectacle: it works like your hand finding the pillow in the dark without you watching it, pure responsiveness with no separate "you" steering. Yunyan offers "hands and eyes all over the body" and is graded eight out of ten. Daowu's correction swaps one phrase for another, "all over," meaning parts scattered across a surface, against "throughout," meaning one seamless thing, and the whole case turns on whether you feel any gap between those two words. The verse then says both phrases miss by a hundred thousand miles and ends on a shout, which is the real instruction, daring you to quit measuring the difference and just be the thing that already reaches for the pillow.