40Yunmen's Black and White雲門白黑

Introduction 示眾

機輪轉處，智眼猶迷；寶鑑開時，纖塵不度。開拳不落地，應物善知時。兩刃相逢時，如何迴互？

The wheel turns, and the sharp eye still loses its way. Raise the mirror, and not a speck of dust gets through. Open your fist and nothing falls. Meet each thing right on time. When two blades cross, how do you slip past?

雲門問乾峯：「請師答話。」峯云：「到老僧也未？」門云：「恁麼別某甲在遲也。」峯云：「恁麼那？恁麼那？」門云：「將謂侯白，更有侯黑。」

Yunmen said to Qianfeng, "Answer me, would you."
Qianfeng said, "Have you gotten there yet, old monk?"
Yunmen said, "Then I'm the one who's late."
Qianfeng said, "Is that so? Is that so?"
Yunmen said, "I took you for Hou Bai. Turns out there's a Hou Hei too."

Verse 頌

弦筈相𠾑，
網珠相對。
發百中而箭箭不虛，
攝眾景而光光無礙。
得言句之總持，
住游戲之三昧。
妙其間也，宛轉偏圓；
必如是也，縱橫自在。

Arrow notch to bowstring,
jewels in the net facing off.
A hundred shots, not one wide.
All the scenery gathered, light through light, nothing blocked.
He holds the whole of every word and phrase,
he lives in the play of perfect ease.
Wondrous between them: rolling, now slanted, now round.
It can only be this way, free and clear, every which way.

Pointer

Yunmen (864–949, Five Dynasties) and Qianfeng are sparring, and the weapons are words. Yunmen opens by demanding an answer; Qianfeng parries by asking whether Yunmen has even reached the point worth answering. They trade thrusts, each refusing to be pinned or to play the lesser man. The payoff is the last line. Hou Bai was a legendary con man and trickster in old Chinese lore, and his name literally reads "Hou White," so when Yunmen says "I took you for Hou Bai, turns out there's a Hou Hei too," he is coining "Hou Black" on the spot: I thought you were the slick one, but here is one slicker still. It is a backhanded salute, one sharp operator tipping his hat to another. The verse just admires two people who can volley like this with neither one's footing slipping. The title's black and white is that invented pair, white con and blacker con.