Three Questions, Three Beatings
行錄（一）
The genre shifts one final time to 行錄, the biographical record of Linji's own training — three years as an unremarkable student, three questions about the Buddhadharma answered only with blows, an awakening at Dayu's side that turns those very beatings inside out, and years afterward under Huangbo planting pines, being struck down while hoeing, and carrying a letter to the master Guishan.
- This part covers
- Linji's three years of unremarkable practice under Huangbo, the head monk's prompting that leads to three questions and three beatings, the awakening at Dayu's side that inverts the meaning of those beatings, a returning slap that makes Huangbo laugh rather than strike back, planting pines on the mountain, being struck down while hoeing and made to hoe a "living burial" instead, and a letter carried to the master Guishan that becomes its own small test.
- A note on chronology
- This part draws on the same events referred to only in passing earlier in this collection — the "three degrees" and "twenty years" Linji mentions in Parts 1, 3, and 4 — now told here as continuous narrative for the first time.
1. Three Questions, Three Beatings
師初在黃蘗會下行業純一，首座乃歎曰：「雖是後生，與眾有異。」遂問：「上座在此多少時？」師云：「三年。」首座云：「曾參問也無？」師云：「不曾參問，不知問箇什麼？」首座云：「汝何不去問堂頭和尚，如何是佛法的的大意？」師便去問，聲未絕，黃蘗便打。師下來，首座云：「問話作麼生？」師云：「某甲問聲未絕，和尚便打，某甲不會。」首座云：「但更去問。」師又去問，黃蘗又打。如是三度發問，三度被打。師來白首座云：「幸蒙慈悲，令某甲問訊和尚，三度發問，三度被打，自恨障緣不領深旨，今且辭去。」首座云：「汝若去時，須辭和尚去。」師禮拜退，首座先到和尚處，云：「問話底後生甚是如法，若來辭時，方便接他，向後穿鑿成一株大樹，與天下人作廕涼去在。」
When the master first joined Huangbo's community, his practice was pure and single-minded, without distraction. The head monk observed this and remarked with admiration: "Though he's young, he is different from the rest." He then asked the master: "Elder, how long have you been here?" The master said: "Three years." The head monk said: "Have you ever gone to ask him a question?" The master said: "I have never asked him anything — I wouldn't know what to ask." The head monk said: "Why not go and ask the abbot what the precise great intent of the Buddhadharma is?" The master went and asked; before he had even finished speaking, Huangbo struck him. The master came back down, and the head monk asked: "How did the question go?" The master said: "Before I had even finished asking, the teacher struck me. I don't understand." The head monk said: "Just go and ask again." The master went and asked again, and Huangbo struck him again. This happened three times: three questions asked, three beatings received. The master came to the head monk and said: "Thanks to your kindness, you had me go and question the teacher. Three times I asked, three times I was beaten. I can only blame my own karmic obstruction for failing to grasp the profound purport — I think I should leave now." The head monk said: "If you are going to leave, you should first take leave of the teacher properly." The master bowed and withdrew. The head monk went ahead to the teacher and said: "That young man who came to question you is very much in accord with the Dharma. When he comes to take his leave, please receive him skillfully — with future cultivation he will grow into a great tree, giving shade and shelter to people everywhere."
This is the full story behind the "three degrees, three beatings" Linji refers to in passing three separate times earlier in this collection (Part 1, Section 2; Part 1, Section 8; Part 3, Section 2), told here for the first time as continuous narrative. The head monk's intervention on both ends — first prompting a diffident young monk to ask a question at all, then quietly advocating for him behind the scenes — is easy to overlook next to the drama of the beatings themselves, but without it Linji never asks his first question, and never leaves for Dayu.
2. Awakening Under Dayu
師去辭黃蘗，蘗云：「不得往別處去，汝向高安灘頭大愚處去，必為汝說。」師到大愚，大愚問：「什麼處來？」師云：「黃蘗處來。」大愚云：「黃蘗有何言句？」師云：「某甲三度問佛法的的大意，三度被打。不知某甲有過？無過？」大愚云：「黃蘗與麼老婆為汝得徹困，更來這裏問有過、無過？」師於言下大悟，云：「元來黃蘗佛法無多子。」大愚搊住云：「這尿床鬼子，適來道有過、無過，如今却道黃蘗佛法無多子。爾見箇什麼道理？速道，速道。」師於大愚脅下築三拳，大愚托開，云：「汝師黃蘗，非干我事。」
The master went to take his leave of Huangbo. Huangbo said: "Do not go anywhere else — go instead to Dayu, at the sandbar in Gao'an; he will surely explain it to you." The master went to Dayu. Dayu asked: "Where have you come from?" The master said: "From Huangbo's place." Dayu said: "What did Huangbo have to say?" The master said: "I asked three times about the precise great intent of the Buddhadharma, and was beaten three times. I don't know whether I was at fault, or not." Dayu said: "Huangbo showed you such grandmotherly kindness, wearing himself out completely for your sake — and you come here asking whether you were at fault or not?" At these words the master was greatly awakened, and said: "So, after all, there wasn't much to Huangbo's Buddhadharma." Dayu seized hold of him and said: "You bed-wetting little devil! A moment ago you were asking whether you were at fault or not, and now you say there wasn't much to Huangbo's Buddhadharma. What exactly have you seen? Speak quickly, speak quickly!" The master struck Dayu three times in the ribs with his fist. Dayu shoved him away and said: "Your teacher is Huangbo — this is none of my affair."
The turn happens entirely inside Dayu's single sentence: reframing three beatings not as punishment for a fault but as "grandmotherly kindness" — a phrase this text uses elsewhere (Part 6, Section 3) for Linji's own teaching style — is enough to collapse Linji's anxious question about fault into something he can suddenly see has no weight at all. His own reaction, three blows to Dayu's ribs, is not gratitude expressed in words but the physical vocabulary he has just been given turned immediately back on the person who gave it to him; Dayu's shrug ("your teacher is Huangbo, not me") declines credit for the awakening as firmly as he had just supplied the words that triggered it.
3. Return to Huangbo, and a Slap Repaid
師辭大愚，却回黃蘗。黃蘗見來便問：「這漢來來去去，有什麼了期？」師云：「秖為老婆心切。」便人事了侍立。黃蘗問：「什麼處去來？」師云：「昨奉慈旨，令參大愚去來。」黃蘗云：「大愚有何言句？」師遂舉前話，黃蘗云：「作麼生得這漢來？待痛與一頓。」師云：「說什麼待來？即今便喫。」隨後便掌。黃蘗云：「這風顛漢却來這裏捋虎鬚。」師便喝。黃蘗云：「侍者引這風顛漢參堂去。」後溈山舉此話問仰山：「臨濟當時得大愚力？得黃蘗力？」仰山云：「非但騎虎頭，亦解把虎尾。」
The master took his leave of Dayu and went back to Huangbo. Seeing him return, Huangbo asked: "This fellow, coming and going, coming and going — when will it ever end?" The master said: "Only because of your own grandmotherly kindness." Then he performed the proper courtesies and stood attending him. Huangbo asked: "Where have you been?" The master said: "Yesterday, following your compassionate instruction, I went to see Dayu." Huangbo said: "What did Dayu have to say?" The master then recounted the whole exchange. Huangbo said: "How can I get my hands on this fellow Dayu? I'll give him a good beating when he comes." The master said: "Why wait for him to come? Take it right now." And with that he slapped Huangbo. Huangbo said: "This crazy fellow, coming here to pull the tiger's whiskers!" The master shouted. Huangbo said: "Attendant, take this crazy fellow to the practice hall." Later Guishan brought this story up and asked Yangshan: "At that time, was it Dayu's strength that carried Linji through, or Huangbo's?" Yangshan said: "It's not only that he rode the tiger's head — he also knew how to grab hold of its tail."
Linji's slap here mirrors the very gesture Huangbo threatens against the absent Dayu — Linji simply redirects it onto the one actually present, refusing to let the threat wait for its named target. Huangbo's response is not to strike back but to laugh it off as "pulling the tiger's whiskers," the exact phrase Linji used of himself in Part 1's second sermon, confirming that the phrase names Linji's own signature style of provocation rather than a rebuke aimed at him from outside.
4. Planting Pines
師栽松次，黃蘗問：「深山裏栽許多，作什麼？」師云：「一與山門作境致，二與後人作標榜。」道了，將钁頭打地三下。黃蘗云：「雖然如是，子已喫吾三十棒了也。」師又以钁頭打地三下，作噓噓聲。黃蘗云：「吾宗到汝大興於世。」後溈山舉此語問仰山：「黃蘗當時秖囑臨濟一人，更有人在？」仰山云：「有，秖是年代深遠，不欲舉似和尚。」溈山云：「雖然如是，吾亦要知，汝但舉看。」仰山云：「一人指南吳越令行，遇大風即止(讖風穴和尚也)。」
The master was planting pine trees when Huangbo asked him: "Why plant so many, deep in these mountains?" The master said: "First, to make a fine sight for the monastery gate; second, to leave a landmark for people who come after." So saying, he struck the ground three times with his hoe. Huangbo said: "Even so, you have already earned thirty blows of my staff." The master struck the ground three more times with his hoe, and let out a long breath. Huangbo said: "My own lineage, when it reaches you, will flourish greatly in the world." Later Guishan brought this up and asked Yangshan: "At that time did Huangbo entrust his teaching only to Linji, or was there someone else as well?" Yangshan said: "There was someone else — but it happened so long ago now that I would rather not mention it to you, teacher." Guishan said: "Even so, I want to know — go ahead and tell me." Yangshan said: "One person will point the compass south, make Wu and Yue obey his command, and stop only when he meets a great wind." (This foretold Master Fengxue.)
Huangbo's "you have already earned thirty blows" for planting trees intended as a landmark "for people who come after" reads as approval delivered in the register of threat, consistent with this text's consistent inversion of blows into recognition rather than punishment. Yangshan's cryptic prophecy, glossed in the text's own parenthetical note as referring to Fengxue Yanzhao — the master who would carry the Linji lineage forward two generations later, quoted repeatedly in this collection's reading notes from Zhizhao's Rentian Yanmu — is one of only two moments in this entire text that reach forward past Linji's own lifetime into the school's later history.
5. Overturning the Meditation Bench
師侍立德山次，山云：「今日困。」師云：「這老漢寐語作什麼？」山便打，師掀倒繩床，山便休。
The master was attending Deshan when Deshan said: "I'm tired today." The master said: "What is this old fellow doing, talking in his sleep?" Deshan struck him. The master flipped over the meditation bench. Deshan simply stopped.
This brief episode is preserved here exactly as it stands in the source text, though this exact exchange — Deshan's complaint of tiredness, the retort about talking in one's sleep, the overturned bench — is elsewhere in Chan literature also attributed to Deshan and his own student Xuefeng Yicun. Rather than silently resolving the discrepancy in either direction, this translation leaves the attribution as this text's own compilers recorded it: Deshan simply stopping, without escalating further, is itself consistent with the same restraint Deshan shows in his encounter with Leipu in Part 5.
6. The Hoe That Struck Back
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。」
During a communal work session, the master was hoeing the ground when he saw Huangbo approaching, and stood there leaning on his hoe. Huangbo said: "Is this fellow tired already?" The master said: "I haven't even lifted the hoe yet — what would I be tired from?" Huangbo struck him. The master caught the staff and, with a single push, sent Huangbo sprawling. Huangbo called out: "Verger! Verger! Help me up!" The verger came forward and helped him up, saying: "Teacher, how can you let this crazy fellow get away with such rudeness?" No sooner was Huangbo back on his feet than he struck the verger instead. The master went on hoeing the ground and said: "Everywhere else they cremate the dead — here, we bury them alive all at once." Later Guishan asked Yangshan: "What did Huangbo mean by striking the verger?" Yangshan said: "The real thief got away, and the one tracking him took the blow instead."
Huangbo striking the very verger who came to his aid, immediately after being knocked down by Linji himself, is one of this text's clearest demonstrations that a blow here tracks something other than simple cause and effect — Yangshan's image of "the real thief" getting away while "the one tracking him" pays the price suggests the verger's fault was presuming to judge the exchange from outside it, not any wrongdoing of his own. Linji's remark about burying the living rather than cremating the dead plays on the very ground he is hoeing, turning routine monastery labor into another register of the same teaching.
7. Closing His Eyes Before Huangbo
師一日在僧堂前坐，見黃蘗來，便閉却目。黃蘗乃作怖勢，便歸方丈。師隨至方丈禮謝，首座在黃蘗處侍立。黃蘗云：「此僧雖是後生，却知有此事。」首座云：「老和尚脚跟不點地，却證據箇後生。」黃蘗自於口上打一摑，首座云：「知即得。」
One day the master was sitting in front of the monks' hall when he saw Huangbo approaching, and closed his eyes. Huangbo made a gesture of fright and went back to his own quarters. The master followed him there and bowed in thanks. The head monk happened to be attending Huangbo at the time. Huangbo said: "Though this monk is young, he already understands this matter." The head monk said: "Old teacher, your own feet aren't even touching the ground, and yet you go about certifying this young man." Huangbo slapped himself on the mouth. The head monk said: "As long as you know it, that's enough."
Huangbo's mock fright at a student simply closing his eyes, followed by his own self-administered slap when the head monk points out that he is not exactly standing on solid ground himself, is one of this text's gentlest exchanges — teacher and disciple both willing to be caught out by a third party without either one losing standing for it.
8. Sleeping in the Hall
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。」
The master was sleeping in the hall when Huangbo came down and saw him, and struck the edge of his platform once with his staff. The master raised his head, saw it was Huangbo, and went back to sleep. Huangbo struck the platform edge again, then went to the upper section of the hall, where he saw the head monk sitting in meditation. He said to him: "Down there, the young man is sleeping soundly, while you sit here indulging in idle thoughts — what are you doing?" The head monk said: "What is this old fellow up to?" Huangbo struck the platform edge once more and walked out. Later Guishan asked Yangshan: "What did Huangbo mean by going into the monks' hall like that?" Yangshan said: "Two throws for the price of one wager."
Huangbo's verdict inverts the expected hierarchy of monastic discipline outright: the young monk asleep is praised, and the senior monk formally seated in meditation is accused of "indulging in idle thoughts" — sleep here reads as freedom from calculation, seated meditation as a posture that can just as easily conceal restless scheming. Yangshan's gambling image, "two throws for the price of one wager," suggests Huangbo tested both men in a single pass through the hall rather than treating them as two separate occasions.
9. The Hoe That Would Not Lift
一日普請次，師在後行，黃蘗回頭見師空手，乃問：「钁頭在什麼處？」師云：「有一人將去了也。」黃蘗云：「近前來，共汝商量箇事。」師便近前，黃蘗竪起钁頭，云：「秖這箇，天下人拈掇不起。」師就手掣得竪起，云：「為什麼却在某甲手裏？」黃蘗云：「今日大有人普請。」便歸院。後溈山問仰山：「钁頭在黃蘗手裏，為什麼却被臨濟奪却？」仰山云：「賊是小人，智過君子。」
One day during communal work, the master was walking along at the back of the group with empty hands. Huangbo turned and saw this and asked: "Where is your hoe?" The master said: "Someone has already taken it away." Huangbo said: "Come here — let's discuss something together." The master came forward. Huangbo raised his own hoe upright and said: "This alone — no one in the whole world could lift it up." The master reached out, seized it from Huangbo's hand, and held it upright himself, saying: "Then why is it in my hand right now?" Huangbo said: "Today there happen to be a great many people at work." And with that he went back to the monastery. Later Guishan asked Yangshan: "The hoe was in Huangbo's own hand — why was it snatched away by Linji?" Yangshan said: "A thief may be a small man, but his cleverness surpasses a gentleman's."
Huangbo's claim that "no one in the whole world" could lift the very hoe he is holding upright is disproved the instant Linji takes it from him — a wordless demonstration rather than an argument, matching this text's consistent preference for showing over asserting. Yangshan's closing line, comparing Linji to a "thief" whose cleverness "surpasses a gentleman's," echoes the same backhanded compliment given to Linji throughout Part 5's exchanges with Puhua and the old elder — theft, in this text's recurring vocabulary, names a kind of skill rather than a moral failing.
10. The Letter to Guishan
師為黃蘗馳書去溈山，時仰山作知客，接得書便問：「這箇是黃蘗底？那箇是專使底？」師便掌，仰山約住云：「老兄知是般事便休。」同去見溈山，溈山便問：「黃蘗師兄多少眾？」師云：「七百眾。」溈山云：「什麼人為導首？」師云：「適來已達書了也。」師却問溈山：「和尚此間多少眾？」溈山云：「一千五百眾。」師云：「太多生。」溈山云：「黃蘗師兄亦不少。」師辭溈山，仰山送出，云：「汝向後北去有箇住處。」師云：「豈有與麼事？」仰山云：「但去。已後有一人佐輔老兄在，此人秖是有頭無尾、有始無終。」師後倒鎮州，普化已在彼中。師出世，普化佐贊於師。師住未久，普化全身脫去。
The master carried a letter from Huangbo to Guishan. At the time, Yangshan was serving as the receiving attendant. Taking the letter, he asked: "Is this Huangbo's own letter? Or does it belong to the messenger sent to deliver it?" The master slapped him. Yangshan caught hold of him and said: "Elder brother, since you already understand this matter, let it rest there." The two of them went together to see Guishan. Guishan asked: "How many students does my elder brother Huangbo have?" The master said: "Seven hundred." Guishan said: "Who leads them?" The master said: "I have already delivered the letter." The master then asked Guishan in turn: "Teacher, how many students do you have here?" Guishan said: "Fifteen hundred." The master said: "That's quite a lot." Guishan said: "My elder brother Huangbo's number isn't small either." The master took his leave of Guishan. Yangshan saw him off and said: "Later on, if you go north, there is a place waiting for you to settle." The master said: "How could there be such a thing?" Yangshan said: "Just go. Afterward there will be one person to assist you, elder brother — though this person will have a head but no tail, a beginning but no end." The master later settled in Zhenzhou, where Puhua was already living. When the master began teaching there, Puhua assisted and supported him. Not long after the master had settled in, Puhua vanished, body and all.
Yangshan's opening question to Linji — treating a simple letter-delivery as if it concealed a Chan riddle about possession ("whose is this, really?") — earns him a slap for overplaying his hand, and his own quick concession ("let it rest there") shows he recognizes the overreach immediately rather than pressing the point. Guishan's question "who leads them" gets no direct answer at all; Linji's non sequitur, "I have already delivered the letter," refuses to speak for Huangbo's seven hundred students in his teacher's place. Yangshan's prophecy of a follower "with a head but no tail" is fulfilled within the same paragraph: Puhua, already settled in Zhenzhou before Linji arrives and vanishing bodily (as told at length in Part 5's closing episode) not long after Linji establishes his teaching there — present at the beginning, gone before the middle.
Part 6 Complete
This closes Part 6. Part 7 completes the biographical record with a flashback to a broken retreat, Linji's final departure from Huangbo, his travels to a gallery of other masters across the Tang-dynasty Chan world, and his death — attending to his own students to the very last exchange before he "sat upright and passed away in silence."