100Langya's Mountains and Rivers瑯琊山河

Introduction 示眾

一言可以興邦，一言可以喪邦。此藥亦能殺人，此藥亦能活人。仁者見之謂之仁，智者見之謂之智。且道：利害在甚麼處？

One sentence can raise up a nation. One sentence can ruin it. The same medicine that heals can kill; the same that kills can heal. The benevolent see it and call it benevolence. The wise see it and call it wisdom. So tell me: where does the help or the harm come in?

僧問瑯琊覺和尚：「清淨本然，云何忽生山河大地？」覺云：「清淨本然，云何忽生山河大地。」

A monk asked Master Langya Huijue, "All is originally pure and clear. So why do mountains, rivers, and the whole earth suddenly come into being?"
Langya said, "All is originally pure and clear. So why do mountains, rivers, and the whole earth suddenly come into being?"

Verse 頌

見有不有，
翻手覆手。
瑯琊山裏人，
不落瞿曇後。

He sees that what is there is not.
Turns his hand palm up, turns it down.
The man inside Langya's mountains
falls not a step behind the Buddha.

Pointer

The collection closes where so much of it sits, on a question with no exit. Langya Huijue was a Song-dynasty master in the Linji line. The monk quotes a famous line from the Surangama Sutra, the same sutra behind case 88: if our true nature is "originally pure and clear," how do mountains, rivers, and the whole earth suddenly come into being? It is the ancient bind, if the source is perfect, where did all the stuff come from. Langya won't supply the theory the monk wants, the account of how purity "fell" into matter. He just repeats the question back word for word. No answer arrives, because nothing is broken that needs explaining: the mountains and rivers are the pure clear thing, not a falling-away from it. The "man inside the mountains" who steps ahead of the Buddha is the one who quits hunting for a backstory and sees what stands in front of him.