28Long Have I Heard of Longtan久響龍潭
龍潭因德山請益抵夜。潭云。夜深子何不下去。山遂珍重揭簾而出。見外面黑卻回云。外面黑。潭乃點紙燭度與。山擬接。潭便吹滅。山於此忽然有省。便作禮。潭云。子見箇甚麼道理。山云。某甲從今日去。不疑天下老和尚舌頭。也至明日龍潭陞堂云。可中有箇漢。牙如劍樹。口似血盆。一棒打不回頭。他時異日向孤峰頂上立吾道在。山遂取疏抄。於法堂前將一炬火。提起云窮諸玄辨。若一毫致於太虛。竭世樞機。似一滴投於巨壑。將疏抄便燒。於是禮辭。
Deshan was at Longtan, asking him questions, and they talked into the night. Longtan said, "It's late. Why don't you turn in?"
Deshan said goodnight, lifted the curtain, and stepped out. Seeing nothing but darkness, he turned back. "It's pitch black out there."
Longtan lit a paper candle and handed it to him. Just as Deshan reached for it, Longtan blew it out.
At that moment Deshan woke up. He bowed.
Longtan said, "What did you just see?"
Deshan said, "From this day on I'll never doubt the words of any old teacher anywhere."
The next day Longtan went up to the hall and said, "There's a fellow among us with teeth like a sword-tree and a mouth like a basin of blood. Hit him with a stick and he won't even turn his head. One day he'll plant my teaching on some lonely peak."
Deshan took his notes and commentaries, held up a torch in front of the lecture hall, and said, "Exhaust every dark and subtle doctrine, and it is one hair flung into the open sky. Drain the world of all its cunning, and it is one drop let fall into a bottomless gorge." Then he burned the whole pile, bowed, and left.
Wumen's Comment 無門曰
德山未出關時。心憤憤口悱悱。得得來南方。要滅卻教外別傳之旨。及到澧州路上。問婆子買點心。婆云。大德車子內是甚麼文字。山云。金剛經抄疏。婆云。只如經中道。過去心不可得。見在心不可得。未來心不可得。大德要點那箇心。德山被者一問。直得口似匾檐。然雖如是。未肯向婆子句下死卻。遂問婆子。近處有甚麼宗師。婆云。五里外有龍潭和尚。及到龍潭納盡敗闕。可謂是前言不應後語。龍潭大似憐兒不覺醜。見他有些子火種。郎忙將惡水。驀頭一澆澆殺。冷地看來一場好笑。
Before Deshan crossed the pass, his chest was tight with fury and his mouth working with rebuttals. He came charging south to stamp out this "special transmission outside the teachings." On the road in Lizhou he stopped to buy a snack from an old woman. She said, "What are all those scrolls in your cart?" He said, "Notes and commentaries on the Diamond Sutra." She said, "The sutra itself says: the past mind can't be grasped, the present mind can't be grasped, the future mind can't be grasped. So which mind do you mean to snack on?" That one question left Deshan's mouth flat as a board. Still, he wouldn't lie down and die at her words. He asked her, "Any good teachers around here?" She said, "Master Longtan, five miles on." Once he reached Longtan, he handed over every last defeat. You could say his first words never squared with his last. As for Longtan: like a doting parent too fond to see how ugly his own child is, he spotted the little spark in Deshan and rushed to fling a bucket of slop on it and drown it dead. Looked at coldly, the whole thing is a joke.