Notes Beside the Bamboo Window — Third Collection, Part 38
Continuing the Third Collection (三筆). Zhuhong closes his defense of Huineng with three Chan sayings praising various masters as possessing only "one eye" or "half a face" of full attainment — arguing that such deliberately paradoxical, restrained praise from within the tradition's own idiom is actually the very highest compliment a Chan master can receive, not the qualified criticism it might appear to be.
115. 大鑑大通（二）— Dajian and Datong (Part Two)
Zhuhong closes his defense of Huineng with three Chan sayings praising various masters as possessing only "one eye" or "half a face" of full attainment — arguing that such deliberately understated praise, expressed in the tradition's own idiom, is actually the very highest compliment a Chan master can receive, not the qualified criticism it might appear to an outsider.
予又思宗門賞鑑許可，抑揚與奪，越格超情，不可以世法之是非論也。石鞏之得所傳也，曰：「三十年張弓，只射得半箇聖人。」曹溪之一隻眼，半箇聖人之謂也。中峰邈高峰之真求贊，贊曰：「我相不思議，佛祖莫能視，獨許不肖兒，見得半邊鼻。」曹溪之一隻眼，半邊鼻之謂也。普化之於臨濟也，曰：「河陽新婦子，木塔老婆禪，臨濟小廝兒，卻具一隻眼。」曹溪之一隻眼，即臨濟之一隻眼也。
I have further reflected that when the Chan tradition itself offers praise or approval, or measures out its own criticism and commendation, it does so in a manner that transcends ordinary convention and feeling altogether — such judgments cannot be assessed by the standards of right and wrong used in ordinary worldly affairs. Consider Shigong Huizang, who, having received transmission, was later told by his own student: "Thirty years of drawing the bow, and I have only ever managed to shoot half a sage." Caoxi's own "single eye" refers to exactly this same "half a sage."
Consider, too, Zhongfeng Mingben, who sought a formal verse of praise for his own portrait from his teacher Gaofeng, and received this reply: "My own true form is inconceivable, beyond even the sight of buddhas and patriarchs — and yet I alone grant this unworthy son of mine the sight of half my own nose." Caoxi's own "single eye" refers to exactly this same "half a nose."
Consider, finally, what Puhua said of Linji: "A young bride from Heyang, an old woman's gentle Chan from Mutashan — and this little servant-boy Linji, who nonetheless possesses a single eye of his own." Caoxi's own "single eye" is exactly the same "single eye" attributed here to Linji himself.
All three exchanges cited here are genuine, well-documented cases from the classical Chan record: Shigong Huizang's exchange with his student Sanping Yizhong, in which the "half a sage" remark led Shigong to snap his own bow in a symbolic gesture, appears in the historical Compendium of Five Lamps; Gaofeng Yuanmiao's cryptic portrait-verse for his student Zhongfeng Mingben, "half my own nose," is likewise independently recorded in Zhongfeng's own biographical tradition; and Puhua's exchange with Linji Yixuan, ending in Puhua's sudden exit after being called a thief, appears in the same historical compendium. Zhuhong's broader point — that such deliberately understated, even self-deprecating praise represents the Chan tradition's own highest register of approval, incomprehensible when judged by ordinary standards of flattery or criticism — extends the same argument this collection made in entry 90 above about the danger of presuming to judge Chan sayings one has not personally verified through genuine practice.