37Zhaozhou Receives the King示眾

師有時示眾云：「老僧初到藥山時，得一句子，直至如今□□地飽。」師因在室坐禪次，主事報大王來禮拜。大王禮拜了，左右問：「土王來，為什麼不起？」師云：「你不會。老僧者裏，下等人來，出三門接。中等人來，下禪床接。上等人來，禪床上接。不可喚大王作中等．下等人也，恐屈大王。」大王歡喜，再三請入內供養。師因問周員外：「你還夢見臨濟也無？」員外竪起拳。師云：「那邊見？」外云：「者邊見。」師云：「什麼處見臨濟？」員外無對。師問周員外：「什麼處來？」云：「非來非去。」師云：「不是老鵶飛來飛去？」

One day Zhaozhou addressed the assembly: "When I first came to Yaoshan, I caught a single phrase. And right up to now I've been [□□ — two characters missing in the source] full."

Another time, while Zhaozhou sat in meditation in his room, an attendant came in. "The king is here to pay his respects." The king made his bows and left.

Afterward someone asked, "When the king came, why didn't you rise?"

Zhaozhou said, "You don't understand. Here is how it works with me. When a low-rank person comes, I go out to the front gate to meet him. When a middling person comes, I step down from my meditation seat to meet him. When a person of the highest rank comes, I meet him right here on the seat. I could hardly treat the king as middling or low. That would shortchange him." Hearing this, the king was delighted, and pressed him again and again to come to the palace and be looked after.

Zhaozhou asked Councilor Zhou, "Have you ever so much as dreamed of Linji?"

Zhou held up his fist.

Zhaozhou said, "From which side did you see it?"

Zhou said, "From this side."

Zhaozhou said, "Then where did you see Linji?"

Zhou had no answer.

Zhaozhou asked Councilor Zhou, "Where do you come from?"

Zhou said, "Neither coming nor going."

Zhaozhou said, "So you're not some old crow flapping back and forth?"

Pointer

A few scenes strung together. Yaoshan was a master Zhaozhou trained under early; "caught one phrase and stayed full on it ever since" is his joke that a single good line was a lifetime's food. The centerpiece is the king's visit. When royalty arrives and a monk stays seated, that reads as a fatal insult, so Zhaozhou inverts it: the less he rises, the higher the honor, since only top-rank guests rate being received without getting up. He turns rudeness into the ultimate compliment and the king buys it outright. Linji was another towering teacher of the same era; when Councilor Zhou holds up a fist as if to signal "I've grasped it," Zhaozhou keeps poking, a fist is just a fist, where is Linji in it. Then Zhou tries "neither coming nor going," a lofty bit of non-attachment talk, and Zhaozhou punctures it on contact: fine, but you still walked in here flapping around like any old crow. Lofty words, ordinary crow, same person.