97Emperor Guang's Crown光帝檏頭

Introduction 示眾

達磨朝梁武，本為傳心；鹽官識大中，不妨具眼。天下太平，國王長壽，不犯天威，日月停景，四時和適，有光風化。人王法王相見，合談何事？

Bodhidharma went to Emperor Wu of Liang: he came to transmit the mind. Yanguan took the measure of his student Dazhong, and there's nothing wrong with having that kind of eye. The realm is at peace, the king lives long, no one offends the power of heaven. Sun and moon stand still, the four seasons run smooth, a fresh wind clears the air. When a worldly king and a king of the Dharma meet face to face, what is there to discuss?

同光帝謂興化曰：「寡人收得中原一寶，只是無人酬價。」化云：「借陛下寶看。」帝以兩手引幞頭脚。化云：「君王之寶，誰敢酬價？」

Emperor Tongguang said to Xinghua, "I've come into a single treasure out of the Central Plains. Trouble is, no one can name its price."

Xinghua said, "Lend me Your Majesty's treasure, and let me look."

The emperor reached up with both hands and tugged the dangling flaps of his crown.

Xinghua said, "A king's treasure. Who would dare price it?"

Verse 頌

君王底意語知音，
天下傾誠葵藿心。
掇出中原無價寶，
不同趙璧與燕金。
中原之寶呈興化，
一段光明難定價。
帝業堪為萬世師，
金輪景耀四天下。

The king's true meaning: speak it to one who hears.
The whole realm leans in, hearts turned to him as sunflowers to the sun.
He brings out the priceless treasure of the Central Plains,
no jade of Zhao, no heaped gold of Yan.
The treasure of the Central Plains, held up for Xinghua:
one flash of brightness no one can price.
A ruler's work, fit to teach ten thousand ages,
the golden wheel ablaze over the four worlds.

Pointer

Tongguang was a real emperor of the 920s, and Xinghua was a noted Chan teacher in Linji's line. The emperor opens with a riddle that is half boast and half probe: I have a treasure out of the Central Plains that no one can put a price on. Xinghua plays along and asks to appraise it, and the emperor reaches up and tugs the dangling flaps of his imperial headgear. The priceless treasure is no gold or jade locked away; it is the living person wearing the crown. Xinghua's answer seals it: who would dare price a king, or a self. Notice that no object is ever produced in the whole exchange; two people simply point at what stands in plain view and decline to shrink it to a number. It rhymes with Yunmen's "one treasure hidden in the mountain of form" a few cases back (92), the same refusal to bury the obvious in mystery.