20A Person of Great Strength大力量人

松源和尚云。大力量人因甚抬腳不起。又云。開口不在舌頭上。

Master Songyuan said, "Why can't a person of great strength lift a leg?"
And: "The mouth that speaks is not where speech lives."

Wumen's Comment 無門曰

松源可謂。傾腸倒腹。只是欠人承當。縱饒直下承當。正好來無門處喫痛棒。何故聾。聻要識真金。火裏看。

Songyuan spilled his whole gut here. All that's missing is someone to take it up. And take it up head-on, no flinching, and you walk straight into Wumen's place for a beating. Why? Because you're deaf. Hello? Want to know if the gold is real? Watch it in the fire.

Verse 頌曰

抬腳踏翻香水海
低頭俯視四禪天
一箇渾身無處著
請續一向

One kick, and the sea of fragrant water tips over.
One bow of the head, looking down on the four heavens of meditation.
A whole body, and nowhere to set it.
Your turn. Finish the line.

Pointer

Songyuan is a Chan teacher who tosses out two riddles in one breath. The first turns on "person of great strength": picture the strongest person alive, who still can't lift their own leg, because the very thing that gives you power is what roots you to the spot. The second, "speech doesn't live on the tongue," points at the real saying of a thing happening somewhere other than the mouth that says it. Wumen then mock-praises Songyuan for over-explaining, jokes that anyone who rises to the challenge gets clubbed for it, and falls back on the old line about testing gold in fire: talk is cheap, prove it under heat. The verse blows the strength image up to cosmic scale, one kick floods the ocean, one glance looks down on the heavens, then strands you, a body that vast with nowhere to stand. The last line hands you the brush: your turn.