91Yanguan's Rhino Fan

Introduction 垂示

超情離見，去縛解粘，提起向上宗乘，扶竪正法眼藏，也須十方齊應，八面玲瓏。直到恁麼田地，且道：還有同得同證、同死同生底麼？試舉看。

Get past feeling, drop opinion. Cut the cords, dissolve the glue. Hoist up the highest teaching, prop up the true Dharma eye. You have to answer from all ten directions at once, clear and bright on every side. And even when you reach that ground, tell me: is there anyone who shares your attainment, shares your proof, dies with you, lives with you? Here's a case. Look.

鹽官一日喚侍者：「與我將犀牛扇子來。」侍者云：「扇子破也。」官云：「扇子既破，還我犀牛兒來。」侍者無對。投子云：「不辭將出，恐頭角不全。」雪竇拈云：「我要不全底頭角。」石霜云：「若還和尚即無也。」雪竇拈云：「犀牛兒猶在。」資福畫一圓相，於中書一牛字。雪竇拈云：「適來為什麼不將出？」保福云：「和尚年尊，別請人好。」雪竇拈云：「可惜勞而無功。」

One day Yanguan called to his attendant: "Bring me the rhino fan."
The attendant said, "The fan's broken."
Yanguan said, "If the fan's broken, then bring me back the rhino."
The attendant had nothing to say.

Touzi said: "I wouldn't refuse to bring it out. I'm only afraid the horns wouldn't be whole."
Xuedou comments: "Those not-whole horns are exactly what I want."

Shishuang said: "If I gave it back to you, there'd be nothing left."
Xuedou comments: "The rhino's still here."

Zifu drew a circle and wrote the word "rhino" inside it.
Xuedou comments: "Why didn't you bring it out a minute ago?"

Baofu said: "You're getting old, Master. Better ask somebody else."
Xuedou comments: "A shame. All that work and nothing to show for it."

Verse 頌

犀牛扇子用多時，
問著元來總不知。
無限清風與頭角，
盡同雲雨去難追。

The rhino fan has seen long use.
Ask after it, and it turns out no one knows a thing.
The boundless cool wind, the horns and the head,
gone with the clouds and rain, past all chasing.

Pointer

Yanguan was a Tang master, and the "rhino fan" is a real luxury item, a folding fan with ribs or a handle of rhinoceros horn. The gag starts plain: the master asks for his fan, the servant says it is busted, and Yanguan flips it, fine, if the fan's wrecked then bring me back the rhino. He does not want the animal; he is poking at whether the real thing behind the worn-out object can be handed over at all. The attendant freezes. Then four more heavyweight masters take their swings at the question, and the editor Xuedou stands there scoring each one and staying unsatisfied, which is the actual point of the case, not any single reply. By now in the book you have watched whole panels of masters fail to close a question, and that pattern is the teaching: the rhino is not a thing anyone catches and hands you, it is the cool wind already blowing through every use of the fan. So where did it go when the fan broke?