53Huangbo's Dregs-Guzzlers黃檗噇糟

Introduction 示眾

臨機不見佛，大悟不存師。定乾坤劍沒人情，擒虎兕機忘聖解。且道：是甚麼人作略？

Meet the moment and you see no Buddha. Wake all the way and you keep no teacher. The sword that settles heaven and earth has no mercy in it. The trap that snares tigers leaves no room for holy answers. So tell me, what kind of person makes a move like that?

黃蘗示眾云：「汝等諸人盡是噇酒糟漢！與麼行脚，何處有今日？還知大唐國裏無禪師麼？」時有僧出云：「只如諸方匡徒領眾，又作麼生？」蘗云：「不道無禪，只是無師。」

Huangbo addressed the assembly: "Every one of you is guzzling the dregs. Wander around like this and where will you ever arrive? Don't you know there's not a single Zen master in all of China?"

A monk stepped out and said, "But what about the ones everywhere who run communities and lead crowds of students?"

Huangbo said, "I didn't say there's no Zen. I said there's no master."

Verse 頌

岐分絲染太勞勞，
葉綴花聯敗祖曹。
妙握司南造化柄，
水雲器具在甄陶。
屏割繁碎，
剪除氄毛。
星衡藻鑑，
玉尺金刀。
黃蘗老察秋毫，
坐斷春風不放高。

Split the thread to dye it, and the labor comes to nothing;
paste leaf to flower, and you wreck the old line.
He holds the compass-needle, the lever that shapes things,
the kiln where students, water and cloud, are fired into form.
Cut away the tangled clutter,
trim off the soft down,
weigh the stars, mirror the depths,
jade ruler, golden blade.
Old Huangbo marks the tip of an autumn hair,
sits and severs the spring wind, lets nothing grow tall.

Pointer

Huangbo was a hard-edged ninth-century master, teacher of Linji, who founded the Linji house. "Guzzling the dregs" is his insult for monks who slurp down leftover words and other people's enlightenment instead of waking up themselves, like drinking the spent mash from brewing and calling it wine. When he announces there's "no Zen master in all of China," he isn't denying that teachers exist, and the trap is right there in the monk's objection. Plenty of people run schools and lead crowds; a real master, someone fully awake rather than merely in charge, is a rarer thing entirely. The distinction is the whole case: a title and a following prove nothing. The verse piles up a craftsman's tools, dyer and kiln and ruler and blade, cutting away every fake so nothing counterfeit gets to stand tall.