35Luopu Bows His Head洛浦伏膺

Introduction 示眾

迅機捷辯，折衝外道天魔；逸格超宗，曲為上根利智。忽遇箇一棒打不迴頭底漢，時如何？

A quick mind and a fast tongue can knock down any rival, any demon, any heretic. Break the rules, leave your school behind, bend over backwards for the sharpest students. Then one day a man walks in who won't turn his head no matter how hard you hit him. Now what?

洛浦參夾山，不禮拜，當面而立。山云：「鷄棲鳳巢，非其同類，出去！」浦云：「自遠趨風，乞師一接。」山云：「目前無闍梨，此間無老僧。」浦便喝。山云：「住，住！且莫草草怱怱。雲月是同，溪山各異。截斷天下人舌頭，即不無；爭教無舌人解語？」浦無語，山便打。浦從此伏膺。

Luopu came to study with Jiashan. He didn't bow. He just stood there, facing him.

Jiashan said, "A chicken roosting in a phoenix's nest. You don't belong here. Get out."

Luopu said, "I came a long way, drawn by your reputation. Grant me one exchange, master."

Jiashan said, "There's no one in front of me. There's no old monk here."

Luopu shouted.

Jiashan said, "Hold on, hold on. Don't be so hasty, so reckless. Clouds and moon are the same everywhere, but the valley and the mountain are each their own. Cut off everyone's tongue, fine. But how do you make a man with no tongue talk?"

Luopu had nothing to say.

Jiashan hit him. From then on Luopu bowed his head and stayed.

Verse 頌

搖頭擺尾赤梢鱗，
徹底無依解轉身。
截斷舌頭饒有術，
拽迴鼻孔妙通神。
夜明簾外兮風月如晝，
枯木巖前兮花卉常春。
無舌人，無舌人，
正令全提一句親。
獨步寰中明了了，
任從天下樂欣欣。

Tail thrashing, head tossing, the red-finned fish:
nothing beneath it to lean on, yet it knows how to turn.
Cut off every tongue? Fine, there's a trick to that.
But to drag a man back by the nose takes real magic.
Outside the bright-night blind, wind and moon make it day.
At the foot of the dead-tree cliff, the flowers bloom all spring.
The man with no tongue, the man with no tongue:
hold up the whole command in one close word.
Walking alone through the world, clear and bright,
he lets all under heaven be glad and at ease.

Pointer

Ninth-century China, two masters. Luopu arrives at Jiashan's place cocky enough to skip the bow and just stand there. The opening jabs are routine sparring: Jiashan tests him with insults, Luopu volleys back, then lets out a "shout," the wordless yell Chan students used to blast through a teacher's logic and signal they were playing on the higher level. Then Jiashan flips the floor. He grants that the kid is sharp enough to silence anyone, and asks the real thing: anybody can shut people up, but can you make a man with no tongue speak, can you teach from the place where words give out? Luopu has nothing. The shout was a technique; this question is the country the technique was supposed to reach, and he is not standing in it. He takes the blow, drops the swagger, and stays. The verse keeps returning to that tongueless man because the teaching it points at comes from under the talk, not from the talk.