15Dongshan's Sixty Blows洞山三頓

雲門因洞山參次。門問曰。近離甚處。山云查渡。門曰夏在甚處。山云湖南報慈。門曰幾時離彼。山云八月二十五。門曰放汝三頓棒。山至明日卻上問訊。昨日蒙和尚放三頓棒。不知過在甚麼處。門曰飯袋子。江西湖南便恁麼去山。於此大悟。

Dongshan came to study with Yunmen. Yunmen asked, "Where are you coming from?"
"Chadu," said Dongshan.
"Where did you spend the summer retreat?"
"Baoci Monastery, in Hunan."
"When did you leave there?"
"August 25th."
Yunmen said, "I'll let you off sixty blows."
The next morning Dongshan came back and asked, "Yesterday you spared me sixty blows. I still don't see what I did wrong."
Yunmen said, "You rice bag. Is this how you go wandering around, Jiangxi, Hunan, and on and on?"
At that, Dongshan woke up.

Wumen's Comment 無門曰

雲門當時便與本分草料。使洞山別有生機一路。家門不致寂寥。一夜在是非海裏。著到直待天明。再來又與他注破。洞山直下悟去。未是性燥。且問諸人。洞山三頓棒合喫不合喫。若道合喫。草木叢林皆合喫棒。若道不合喫。雲門又成誑語。向者裏明得。方與洞山出一口氣。

Right then Yunmen fed Dongshan exactly what he needed. He gave him a whole new way to come alive and kept the family line from falling silent. But first he left him to thrash all night in a sea of right and wrong, waiting for daybreak. Then he came back and broke it open a second time. Dongshan got it on the spot, though he wasn't exactly quick about it.

So let me ask you all: those sixty blows Dongshan supposedly earned, did he deserve them or not? Say he deserved them, and every tree and blade of grass in the forest deserves a beating too. Say he didn't, and Yunmen's a liar. Get clear about this, and you'll breathe with the same breath as Dongshan.

Verse 頌曰

獅子教兒迷子訣
擬前跳躑早翻身
無端再敘當頭著
前箭猶輕後箭深

The lioness teaches her cub the trick of the feint,
crouch to spring, then twist in midair, gone.
For no reason she circles back and strikes again, dead-on.
The first arrow grazed. The second goes deep.

Pointer

Dongshan is a young monk on pilgrimage, traveling teacher to teacher; Yunmen is a ferocious master. The opening reads like small talk, where are you from, where'd you spend the summer, when'd you leave, and Dongshan answers each flatly, as if filling out a form. "Sixty blows" was a standard thrashing for a screwup, so saying "I'll let you off" the blows is Yunmen telling him he blew it. Dongshan then spends all night stewing over which rule he broke, which is exactly the wrong question, still treating Zen as a test with right answers. "Rice bag" means dead weight, a body that just hauls food around. The jab: a real seeker isn't a tourist clocking dates and place-names, and if you're awake you're awake here, not collecting stamps from monastery to monastery. The verse reads the beating as a lioness training her cub, the soft answer the first arrow, the insult the second, and the second one lands.