57Yanyang's One Thing嚴陽一物

Introduction 示眾

弄影勞形，不識形為影本；揚聲止響，不知聲是響根。若非騎牛覓牛，便是以楔去楔。如何免得此過？

You wear yourself out chasing your own shadow, never seeing that the body is what casts it. You shout to quiet the echo, never knowing the voice is what makes it. This is riding the ox to go looking for the ox, prying out one wedge by driving in another. So how do you escape the mistake?

嚴陽尊者問趙州：「一物不將來時如何？」州云：「放下著。」嚴云：「一物不將來，放下箇甚麼？」州云：「恁麼則擔取去。」

Yanyang asked Zhaozhou, "When I come bringing not a single thing, then what?"

Zhaozhou said, "Put it down."

Yanyang said, "I'm carrying nothing. Put down what?"

Zhaozhou said, "Then haul it back out with you."

Verse 頌

不防細行輸先手，
自覺心麁媿撞頭。
局破腰間斧柯爛，
洗清凡骨共仙游。

Careless in the small moves, he forfeits the opening play;
slack of mind, he stumbles and bangs his own head.
The game ends, the axe handle at his waist long rotted through.
Washed clean of common bones, he wanders off among the immortals.

Pointer

Yanyang figures he's nailed it. He shows up "empty-handed," carrying nothing, no attachments, no ideas, nothing to cling to, which is supposed to be the awakened move. Zhaozhou's reply, "Put it down," is a trap: if there's anything to put down, you were holding something. So Yanyang protests, there's nothing to drop, and Zhaozhou springs it, fine, then your precious "nothing" is itself a load, so haul it back out. Congratulating yourself on having no attachments is just one more attachment, and the heaviest one going. The verse ends on an old tale: a woodcutter stops to watch two immortals play a board game, and by the time it's over, ages have passed and his axe handle has crumbled to dust, so absorbed he lost track of everything, himself included. Losing the self isn't a trophy you hold up; the moment you display it, it's gone.