57Records of His Travels行錄

到大慈，慈在方丈內坐。師問：「端居丈室時如何？」慈云：「寒松一色千年別，野老拈花萬國春。」師云：「今古永超圓智體，三山鎖斷萬重關。」慈便喝，師亦喝。慈云：「作麼？」師拂袖便出。

Linji came to Dací, who sat inside his abbot's room. Linji asked, "What is it like, settled here in your room?"

Dací said, "The cold pine holds one color, parted a thousand years. The old farmer lifts a flower, and ten thousand lands turn to spring."

Linji said, "Whole and entire, perfect wisdom forever leaps past past and present. The three sacred peaks bolt shut ten thousand gates."

Dací gave a shout. Linji shouted back.

Dací said, "So what?"

Linji shook out his sleeves and walked out.

Pointer

Another stop on the pilgrimage, this time at Dací's place. The "abbot's room," literally a ten-foot square, is the cell where a monastery's head lives and receives people, so Linji's opening, "what's it like, settled here in your room?", is half greeting and half probe at what's actually going on when Dací just sits. They trade matching couplets, a poetic duel of images piling up timelessness and a wisdom so complete it bolts every gate shut behind it (the "lifting a flower" line nods to the old story of the Buddha holding up a single flower and one disciple grasping it without a word). Then both men shout, the signature Linji bark that slams the door on thinking, and Dací's "so what?" is the real dare: you can match me line for line, now show me you have anything past the performance. Linji's reply is to flick his sleeves and go, no last word. Whether that exit is the genuine article or just a slicker way to take the round is the wire the case leaves bare.