96Jiufeng Won't Buy It九峯不肯

Introduction 示眾

雲居不憑戒珠舍利，九峯不愛坐脫立亡，牛頭不要百鳥㗸花，黃蘗不羨浮柸渡水。且道：別有何長處？

Yunju didn't lean on holy relics. Jiufeng wasn't impressed by dying on cue, sitting or standing. Niutou had no use for birds bringing him flowers. Huangbo didn't envy the monk who crossed the river on a raft. So tell me: what did they actually have?

九峯在石霜作侍者。霜遷化後，眾欲請堂中首座接續住持。峯不肯，乃云：「待某甲問過。若會先師意，如先師侍奉。」遂問：「先師道：『休去歇去，一念萬年去，寒灰枯木去，一條白練去。』且道明甚麼邊事？」座云：「明一色邊事。」峯云：「恁麼則未會先師意在。」座云：「爾不肯我？那裝香來。」座乃焚香云：「我若不會先師意，香煙起處脫去不得。」言訖，便坐脫。峯乃撫其背云：「坐脫立亡則不無，先師意未夢見在。」

Jiufeng was serving as attendant to Shishuang. After Shishuang died, the assembly wanted to install the head monk as the next abbot and carry on the line. Jiufeng wouldn't have it. "Let me put a question to him first," he said. "If he gets the late master's meaning, I'll serve him as I served the master."

So he asked, "The late master said, 'Quit and rest. Make one thought last ten thousand years. Be cold ashes, a dead tree. Be a single strip of white silk.' Tell me, what was he pointing at?"

"He was speaking of the realm where everything is one color," said the head monk.

"Then you haven't gotten the late master's meaning."

"You don't accept me? Bring me some incense." When it came, he lit it and said, "If I haven't gotten the late master's meaning, I won't die before this smoke rises." With that he sat down and died.

Jiufeng stroked his back. "Dying sitting or standing, sure, you've got that. But the late master's meaning you haven't seen even in a dream."

Verse 頌

石霜一宗，
親傳九峯。
香煙脫去，
正脈難通。
月巢鶴作千年夢，
雪屋人迷一色功。
坐斷十方猶點額，
密移一步看飛龍。

One line from Shishuang,
handed straight to Jiufeng.
The smoke rose, the man let go,
yet the true vein never came through.
A crane in its moonlit nest dreams a thousand years.
A man snowed into his house is lost in "all one color."
Cut off the ten directions, and still you fail the mark.
Step quietly to one side, and watch the dragon fly.

Pointer

In old Chan circles, dying on command, sitting upright or standing and just releasing the body, was the showpiece feat, taken as proof you had mastered something. This story detonates that. Shishuang, a famous teacher, had left a string of phrases, "cold ashes, a dead tree, one strip of white silk," that sound like the destination: shut it all down, go blank and still. The head monk reads them at face value as the realm where everything melts into one undifferentiated color, and to prove the reading he drops dead on the spot, which is impressive by any measure. Shishuang's attendant Jiufeng won't buy it: parking in that blank "one color" is exactly the miss, however spectacular the exit. The "one quiet step" the verse wants is the move past the stillness rather than into it. The intro stacks up other masters who shrugged off such marvels, holy relics and birds bearing flowers.