48Buried Alive行錄

師普請鋤地次，見黃蘗來，拄钁而立。黃蘗云：「這漢困那？」師云：「钁也未舉，困箇什麼？」黃蘗便打，師接住棒，一送送倒。黃蘗喚：「維那！維那！扶起我。」維那近前扶，云：「和尚爭容得這風顛漢無禮？」黃蘗纔起便打維那，師钁地，云：「諸方火葬，我這裏一時活埋。」後溈山問仰山：「黃蘗打維那意作麼生？」仰山云：「正賊走却，邏蹤人喫棒。」

The whole community was out hoeing the fields. Linji saw Huangbo coming, so he leaned on his hoe and stood there.

Huangbo said, "Worn out already?"

Linji said, "I haven't even swung the hoe yet. Worn out from what?"

Huangbo swung at him. Linji caught the stick in mid-air, gave it a shove, and knocked the old man flat.

Huangbo yelled, "Steward! Steward! Help me up."

The steward rushed over and lifted him. "Master, how can you let this crazy fool get away with such disrespect?"

The moment Huangbo was on his feet, he hit the steward.

Linji dug his hoe into the ground and said, "Everywhere else they cremate the dead. Around here, we bury them alive."

Later Guishan asked Yangshan, "What was Huangbo getting at, hitting the steward?"

Yangshan said, "The real thief slips away, and the cop chasing the trail eats the beating."

Pointer

Linji and Huangbo are out hoeing the fields with the rest of the monks, still in the easy sparring that fills these post-awakening scenes (the communal-labor scenes run through 47, 48, and 51). Huangbo opens with a jab, "worn out already?", Linji bats it back, and when Huangbo swings his stick Linji catches it mid-air and dumps his own teacher flat on the ground. That isn't an outrage, it's a pass: Huangbo is testing whether the student responds from real footing or flinches, and he's pleased. The trouble is the steward, the monk who runs the monastery's daily operations, who sees only "kid attacks the master" and rushes in to defend Huangbo's dignity, so Huangbo gets up and clobbers him instead. Yangshan's line lands the point: the steward is the cop who lets the actual criminal stroll off while beating the bystander he caught at the scene. Reading the surface of a thing and missing what it's doing gets you the stick.