18Inside the Three Phrases示眾

師示眾云：「心生即種種法生，心滅即種種法滅。你諸人作麼生？」僧乃問：「只如不生不滅時如何？」師云：「我許你者一問。」師因參次云：「明又未明，道昏欲曉，你在阿那頭？」僧云：「不在兩頭。」師云：「與麼即在中間也。」云：「若在中間，即在兩頭。」師云：「這僧多少時在老僧者裏作與麼語話，不出得三句裏。然直饒出得，也在三句裏。你作麼生？」僧云：「某甲使得三句。」師云：「何不早與麼道？」問：「如何是通方？」師云：「離却金剛禪。」

Zhaozhou addressed the assembly: "When the mind stirs, all sorts of things arise. When the mind quiets, all sorts of things wink out. So what about you?"

A monk asked, "And when nothing arises and nothing ceases, what then?"

Zhaozhou said, "I'll grant you that one question."

During an evening session, Zhaozhou said, "Light, but not yet light. Call it the road from dusk toward dawn. Which end are you standing on?"

A monk said, "Neither end."

Zhaozhou said, "Then you're in the middle."

The monk said, "If I'm in the middle, I'm at both ends."

Zhaozhou said, "How long has this monk been here with me, talking like this? You can't get outside the three phrases. And even if you could, you'd still be inside them. So what about you?"

The monk said, "I can put the three phrases to use."

Zhaozhou said, "Why didn't you say so to begin with?"

A monk asked, "What is the way that goes everywhere?"

Zhaozhou said, "Drop the Diamond meditation."

Pointer

Zhaozhou opens with an old formula: the world you experience rises and falls with the mind, stir it and a thousand things appear, quiet it and they wink out. Then comes the trap of the "three phrases," a stock teaching grid that sorts any answer into three slots, roughly this end, that end, and the middle. The monk keeps trying to slip the net, not this end, not that, not the middle, and Zhaozhou keeps showing he is still boxed in, since dodging the three is just a fourth move played inside the same game. The release comes when the monk quits fighting the box and says he can simply use the three phrases, and Zhaozhou pounces: that's it, why did it take you so long. The last exchange is its own riddle. Asked for the path that goes everywhere, he says drop the Diamond meditation, telling a man to set down his hardest, most prized practice and walk on without it.