44Linji at Jingshan勘辨

徑山有五百眾，少人參請，黃蘗令師到徑山，乃謂師曰：「汝到彼作麼生？」師云：「某甲到彼自有方便。」師到徑山，裝腰上法堂見徑山。徑山方舉頭，師便喝。徑山擬開口，師拂袖便行。尋有僧問徑山：「這僧適來有什麼言句便喝和尚？」徑山云：「這僧從黃蘗會裏來，爾要知麼？且問取他。」徑山五百眾太半分散。

The monastery on Mount Jingshan had five hundred monks, but hardly any of them came to the teacher with real questions. So Huangbo sent Linji over.

"What will you do when you get there?" Huangbo asked.

"I'll find a way once I arrive," Linji said.

He reached Jingshan, walked straight up into the Dharma hall with his travel pack still strapped on, and went to see the master. The instant Jingshan raised his head to look, Linji shouted. Jingshan started to open his mouth, and Linji shook out his sleeves and walked off.

Later a monk asked Jingshan, "That monk just now: what did he have on you, to shout at you like that?"

Jingshan said, "He came from Huangbo's assembly. You want to know? Go ask him yourself."

After that, more than half of Jingshan's five hundred monks scattered.

Pointer

A bookend to case 23: there Linji tested his teacher Huangbo, here Huangbo sends him out on an errand, so he is still the apprentice being aimed like a weapon. Jingshan runs a marquee monastery, five hundred monks, but the story tells you it has gone slack, plenty of bodies and nobody actually pressing. The Dharma hall is the formal teaching room, and marching in with your travel pack still strapped on is a calculated insult, mud on the boardroom carpet. Watch the timing, because it is the whole move: Jingshan never gets a single word out, Linji shouts the instant he lifts his head and walks the instant he tries to reply, so there is no exchange, nothing for Jingshan to grip and look good holding. Then "more than half" the monks scatter, read it as Linji blowing the doors off a hollow operation. To his credit Jingshan will not paper over it, "go ask him yourself," which is closer to passing the test than anything his five hundred were doing.