Beyond Words

When Master Dongshan arrived at Fang Pond, he saw a monastic official giving a dharma talk to the assembly. The man cited no sutras or scriptural authorities at all; Dongshan heard only him muttering softly to himself: How utterly marvelous! How utterly marvelous! The Buddha-realm, the Way-realm—utterly inconceivable! After hearing this, Master Dongshan stepped forward and asked: “I do not ask about the Buddha-realm or the Way-realm. I only ask: who is the person who just spoke of the Buddha-realm and the Way-realm right here?” The man giving the talk was a highly respected monastic official at the temple, its chief preceptor, whom everyone called the First Preceptor. Upon hearing the question, the First Preceptor fell silent, not uttering a word. But Master Dongshan would not let the matter drop, and pressed him again and again: “Why won’t you speak quickly?” Not wanting to seem outmatched, the First Preceptor replied: “If I rush to speak, I will gain nothing.” Master Dongshan countered, “You haven’t said a single word yet—what do you mean, you gain nothing if you rush to speak?” The First Preceptor fell silent once more. Master Dongshan realized he had finally met his match, so he softened his tone and said: “The Buddha and the Way are just names, after all. I asked you a question—why didn’t you cite the dharma teachings to answer me?” Seeing an opening, the First Preceptor asked eagerly: “What do the teachings say?” Master Dongshan clapped his hands and laughed heartily, replying: “Grasp the meaning, forget the words!” When Zen practitioners speak with one another, this sharp, back-and-forth exchange is called jifeng (often translated as dharma repartee). At times it sounds like they are talking right past each other, as if one were describing a cow’s head while the other spoke of a horse’s mouth—completely mismatched—yet the two practitioners share a deep, unspoken truth between them. Consider Master Dongshan asking the First Preceptor to speak: the First Preceptor answered only with silence. When the First Preceptor turned the question back on Dongshan, asking how he would respond, Dongshan said, “Grasp the meaning, forget the words.” In truth, the state of forgetting words is the very heart of authentic Zen.