25Linji Sticks Out His Tongue勘辨

師一日同普化赴施主家齋次，師問：「毛吞巨海、芥納須彌，為是神通妙用？本體如然？」普化踏倒飯床。師云：「太麁生。」普化云：「這裏是什麼所在，說麁、說細？」師來日又同普化赴齋，問：「今日供養何似昨日？」普化依前踏倒飯床。師云：「得即得，太麁生。」普化云：「瞎漢！佛法說什麼麁細？」師乃吐舌。

One day Linji went with Puhua to a patron's house for a meal. Linji asked, "A single hair swallows the whole ocean, a mustard seed holds Mount Sumeru. Is that some special power at work, or just the way things are?" Puhua kicked over the dinner table. "Pretty crude," Linji said. "What kind of place do you think this is," said Puhua, "to be talking crude and fine?"

The next day the two of them went out to eat again. Linji asked, "How does today's spread compare to yesterday's?" Puhua kicked the table over, just like before. "You've got it," Linji said, "but it's awfully crude." Puhua said, "You blind fool. Since when does the Dharma deal in crude and fine?" Linji stuck out his tongue.

Pointer

This begins a run of four scenes with Puhua, the holy fool who shadows Linji and refuses to be pinned (his thread pays off when he climbs into his own coffin at case 45). Linji opens with a stock scriptural image, a single hair holding the whole ocean, a mustard seed holding Mount Sumeru, the infinitely large folded into the infinitely small, then springs the trap: is that a miracle, or just how things plainly are? Both answers swallow the bait. Puhua skips the question and kicks the dinner table over, twice. The live snag is "crude versus fine": Linji keeps grading the kick on a scale of coarse and refined, and Puhua keeps throwing the scale out, since the Dharma does not come in grades to rank. Linji ends by sticking out his tongue, the face you make when you have been caught flat and you know it.