50Two Wins, One Match行錄

師在堂中睡，黃蘗下來見，以拄杖打板頭一下。師舉頭見是黃蘗，却睡。黃蘗又打板頭一下，却往上間，見首座坐禪，乃云：「下間後生却坐禪，汝這裏妄想作什麼？」首座云：「這老漢作什麼？」黃蘗打板頭一下，便出去。後溈山問仰山：「黃蘗入僧堂意作麼生？」仰山云：「兩彩一賽。」

Linji was asleep in the meditation hall. Huangbo came in, saw him, and cracked his staff once on the head of the bench. Linji raised his head, saw it was Huangbo, and went back to sleep. Huangbo cracked the bench again and moved on to the upper section, where he found the head monk sitting in meditation. "The young one down at the far end is the one really sitting," he said. "What are you doing up here, lost in your daydreams?" The head monk said, "What's this old man on about?" Huangbo cracked the bench once more and walked out.

Later Guishan asked Yangshan, "What was Huangbo after, coming into the hall?" Yangshan said, "Two wins in one match."

Pointer

The meditation hall doubled as the monks' communal sleeping-and-sitting room, so Linji napping there is less of a scandal than it sounds, and the "board" Huangbo keeps cracking is just a wooden signal plank used to make a point. Huangbo comes in and tests two men on one pass. Linji, caught dead asleep, lifts his head, clocks that it's the boss, and drops right back to sleep, unbothered. The head monk, caught doing everything correctly in upright meditation, gets told he's the one daydreaming and instantly bristles, "what's this old man on about?" That contrast is the whole case: the one who looks lazy is loose and unshakable, the one who looks diligent is tight and rattled. Yangshan's verdict, "two wins in one match," is a gambling phrase, and it scores the round for Huangbo, who exposed both men cleanly, with the napper coming out ahead of the show-off.