Notes Beside the Bamboo Window — Third Collection, Part 22
Continuing the Third Collection (三筆). A two-part reflection on why Zhuhong himself has never written verse commentaries on the old Chan cases, admitting first that he lacks the effortless realization such commentary requires, and then, at greater length, that he has not even fully broken through the classic cases himself — closing with a sober warning about the real spiritual danger of pretending to understanding one does not have.
89. 頌古拈古（一）— Verse and Commentary on the Old Cases (Part One)
Asked why, unlike so many other Chan writers, he has never composed verse commentaries on the classic cases, Zhuhong gives a characteristically humble answer: such commentary should flow effortlessly from genuine, complete awakening, and he does not consider his own realization equal to even the more approachable classic cases, let alone the most difficult ones.
或問古人皆有頌古、拈古，子獨無，何也？答曰：不敢也。古人大徹大悟之後，吐半偈、發片言，皆從真實心地、大光明藏中自然流出，不假思惟，不煩造作，今人能如是乎？國初尊宿言：公案有二等，如狗子佛性、萬法歸一之類是一等；又有最後極則淆訛，謂之腦後一槌，極為難透。予於前狗子、萬法，尚未能無疑，何況最後！故不敢恣其臆見，妄為拈頌也。
Someone asked me: the ancients all left behind verse commentaries and expository notes on the old Chan cases — why do you alone have none? I answered: I would not dare to write them. After the ancients had achieved great and thorough awakening, whatever half-verse or brief phrase they uttered flowed naturally from their own genuine mind-ground, from the treasury of great brilliant light itself — without relying on deliberate thought, without laborious effort. Could anyone today truly manage the same? A venerable teacher from the early years of this dynasty once said that Chan cases fall into two categories: cases like "does a dog have Buddha-nature" or "the ten thousand dharmas return to one" belong to the first, more approachable category; but there is also a final, ultimate kind of tangled confusion, called "the blow to the back of the head," which is exceedingly difficult to penetrate. As for the first category — the dog's Buddha-nature, the ten thousand dharmas returning to one — I myself have not yet managed to be entirely free of doubt, let alone the final, most difficult category! This is why I would not dare indulge my own private opinions by rashly composing commentary or verse on them.
"Does a dog have Buddha-nature" and "the ten thousand dharmas return to one" are both genuine, celebrated kōans attributed to the Tang-dynasty master Zhaozhou Congshen, among the most widely studied cases in the entire Chan tradition; Zhuhong's admission here that he remains unable to resolve even these more approachable cases stands in deliberate, pointed contrast to the many contemporaries who freely composed verse commentaries on the full range of classical cases, and anticipates the far more extensive personal accounting of his own limitations that follows immediately in the next entry.
90. 頌古拈古（二）— Verse and Commentary on the Old Cases (Part Two)
Pressed further on whether his earlier humility was merely false modesty, Zhuhong runs through a roll call of history's most famous Chan awakening stories, honestly asking of each one whether he has truly matched it himself — and closes with a sober warning about the real spiritual danger of pretending to an understanding one does not actually possess.
或曰：子其謙乎！蓋能而示之以不能乎！曰：非謙也，是真語實語也。《楞伽》示宗、說二通，而教多顯義，宗多密義，故又云無義味語。予於教之深玄者猶未能盡通也，而況於宗門中語乎！復次宗門問答機緣，雖云無義味語，然有猶存少分義路可思議者；有絕無義路，似無孔鐵槌不可鑽刺者，有似太虛空不可捉摸者，有似鐵蒺藜不可咬嚼者，有似大火聚不可近傍者，有似赫日輪不可著眼者，有似砒霜、鴆羽不可沾脣者，安得妄議？
略舉古人一二，世尊拈花，迦葉破顏微笑，我今已能冥會佛心如迦葉否？客誦《金剛》，六祖即時契悟，我今已能頓了深經如六祖否？臨濟見大愚，而曰：「黃檗佛法無多子」，我今已能實見得無多子否？趙州八十行腳，曰：「祇為心頭未悄然」，我今已能心頭悄然否？香巖擊竹有聲，而曰：「一擊忘所知」，我今已能忘所知否？靈雲見桃花，而曰：「直至如今更不疑」，我今已能的的到不疑之地否？高峰被雪巖問正睡著無夢時主人，不能答，我今已能答斯問否？又三年而於枕子落地處大悟，我今已有此大悟否？如此類者，不可勝舉，儻有一未明，其餘皆未必明也，如兜率悅公之謂張無盡是也。非惟古人，即今人所作，亦不敢輕評其是非，而漫為之貶駮也。何也？人坐於堂上，方能辨堂下人曲直，又未曾繫籍聖賢故也。嗟乎！錯答一轉語，墮野狐身百劫；笑明眼人答話，倒屙三十年。覆轍昭然，可弗慎諸？
Someone said to me: surely you are just being modest — you have the ability, and only present yourself as lacking it! I answered: this is not modesty, but simple, honest truth. The Laṅkāvatāra Sutra distinguishes two kinds of mastery, mastery of the essential principle and mastery of exposition; the teaching-schools tend to make their meaning explicit, while the Chan lineage tends toward hidden, esoteric meaning — which is why Chan sayings are also called "words without ordinary flavor of meaning." I myself have not yet fully mastered even the profound and subtle principles of the teaching-schools — how much less the sayings of the Chan lineage itself! Moreover, although the questions, answers, and turning-points of Chan tradition are said to be "without ordinary flavor of meaning," some of them still retain a small residue of logical sense that can be reasoned about, while others admit no logical path whatsoever — some are like an iron hammer with no hole through which anything could be driven; some are like empty space itself, impossible to grasp; some are like an iron caltrop, impossible to bite into; some are like a great mass of fire, impossible to approach; some are like the blazing disk of the sun, impossible to look upon directly; and some are like arsenic or the poisoned feathers of the zhen-bird, impossible to let touch one's lips. How could I dare offer careless opinions on such things?
Let me briefly cite a few examples from the ancients. When the World-Honored One held up a flower and Kāśyapa alone broke into a smile, could I today truly meet the Buddha's own mind in silence as Kāśyapa did? When a visitor recited the Diamond Sutra and the Sixth Patriarch was instantly awakened by it, could I today suddenly penetrate the profound sutras as he did? When Linji met Dayu and exclaimed, "So there was never much to Huangbo's Buddha-dharma after all!" — have I today truly, personally seen for myself that there was never much to it? When Zhaozhou, at eighty years of age, still walked from teacher to teacher, saying only, "It is simply that my own mind has not yet grown fully still" — has my own mind today truly grown still? When Xiangyan heard the sound of a tile striking bamboo and declared, "At a single blow, I forgot everything I thought I knew" — have I today truly forgotten everything I thought I knew? When Lingyun saw peach blossoms and wrote, "From the moment I saw the peach blossoms until this very day, I have never doubted again" — have I today truly, genuinely arrived at a place beyond all doubt? When Gaofeng was asked by Xueyan where the master resides in dreamless sleep, and could not answer — can I today answer that very question? And when, three more years later, Gaofeng suddenly awakened at the sound of a pillow falling to the floor — have I today had any awakening to compare with that?
Examples of this kind could be listed without end, and if there is even a single one among them that remains unclear to a person, then it is not certain that any of the others are truly clear to him either — exactly as Chan Master Dolü Congyue said to the layman Zhang Wujin. It is not only the ancients, then, whose words I would not presume to judge — even the writings of people alive today, I would not dare lightly pronounce right or wrong, or carelessly disparage. Why is this? Only someone who has already ascended the hall himself can properly judge the right and wrong of those still standing below it — and I myself have never yet been enrolled among the ranks of the sages. Alas! One wrong turn of phrase in answering a question once condemned a man to a hundred kalpas reborn as a wild fox; and one moment of mockery aimed at another's genuine answer once brought thirty years of a sickness that made him vomit up his own food. With such clear precedents of ruin before us, how could one fail to be careful?
Every awakening story Zhuhong cites here is a genuine, independently attested case from the classical Chan record — the World-Honored One's flower and Kāśyapa's smile as the traditional origin of Chan's "mind-to-mind transmission"; the historical Sixth Patriarch Huineng's awakening upon hearing the Diamond Sutra recited in the marketplace, as recorded in the Platform Sutra; Linji Yixuan's awakening under Dayu after repeated blows from Huangbo; the elderly Zhaozhou Congshen's proverbial travels even at eighty; Xiangyan Zhixian's awakening at Nanyang upon hearing a tile strike bamboo; Lingyun Zhiqin's awakening on seeing peach blossoms at Guishan; and Gaofeng Yuanmiao's prolonged struggle with Xueyan Zuqin's "who is master in dreamless sleep" before his own eventual breakthrough. The closing fable of a monk condemned to a hundred lifetimes as a wild fox for one careless wrong answer is itself the famous case of Baizhang's fox (already referenced in this collection's own twentieth entry above), while the account of a monk's thirty years of illness for mocking another's genuine answer is the equally well-documented "Shushan's illness" case — Zhuhong's citation of both together underscores how seriously the tradition itself treats false claims to attainment, which is precisely the danger he says he wishes to avoid by declining to write verse commentary at all.