Daochuan's comments

Tao-ch’uan says, “If you don’t share the same bed, how can you know how a paper blanket [bedding of the poor] works? My song goes: ‘Strike the drum and strum the lute / here where these two meet / you walk the willow-lined shore / while I stand here at the ferry / dusk on the river once the rain passes / count the green peaks that touch the red sky.”

Tao-ch’uan says, “His poverty was like that of Fan Tan. His valor was like that of Hsiang Yu. My song goes: ‘No roof above / no possessions below / the sun sets, the moon rises / who knows who this is?’ Hey!” (Fan Tan was a Chinese Midas, and Hsiang Yu contended with Liu Pang for the right to succeed the Ch’in dynasty at the end of the third century B.C. Both appear in Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s Shihchi [Records of the Historian], for which see Burton Watson’s translation into English.)

Tao-ch’uan says, “The Way of the ancients was said to be ‘just so.’ For by the time they talked about it, it had already changed. But when the Way changes, where does it go? Spit it out! It doesn’t run off just anywhere. Where does it actually go? Speak! Words won’t burn your mouth. Just: on a clear still night the moon shines alone. So: water doesn’t exist apart from waves. The waves are water.”

Tao-ch’uan says, “When you’re happy, I’m not / when you’re sad, I’m not / a crane thinks of flying north or south / a swallow thinks of its old nest / autumn moon and spring flower thoughts never end / you only need to know yourself right now.”

Tao-ch’uan says, “Multiple limbs and demon faces / impervious to clubs and knives / we leave the world millions of times / but never the palace of the King of Nothing.” [Note: the King of Nothing is the Buddha.]

Tao-ch’uan says, “Officially, there’s not enough room for a needle. Privately, carts and horses are able to pass through. My song goes: ‘Please look up and see the sky / far and wide and without tracks / turn your body around a bit / everything is right before you.’”

Tao-ch’uan says, “A rabbit-horn staff. A tortoise-hair robe. My song goes: ‘A stone horse sheds light from every hair / an iron ox bellows beneath the Yangtze / chanting in the sky he leaves no trace / suddenly his body is in the Dipper.’ In other words, in the teaching of a dharma, no dharma is taught.”

Tao-ch’uan says, “Among beings, there are sages and ordinary beings. Ordinary beings are unable to believe in prajna. Only beings with the body of a sage can believe and understand it. They are not beings because they are not ordinary beings. Neither are they not beings, for nor are they not beings with the body of a sage. Beings with the body of a sage are those who have the capacity for the Mahayana. How can they be seen as ordinary mortals and incapable of belief? Fire is hot. The wind moves. Water is wet. The earth is solid. My song goes, ‘How can a deer turn into a stallion / and who says a crow is a high-flying eagle / still they aren’t the least bit different / horses and donkeys and how many others.’”

Tao-ch’uan says, “My song goes: ‘One hand pointed to Heaven, the other to the Earth / north and south, east and west, he left out not a hair / he was born with gall bigger than the sky / when countless demons saw him, they dropped their fiery flags.’”

Tao-ch’uan says, “Sitting silent late at night in a mountain shrine / desolate and deserted is just the way it is / why does the west wind stir the forest trees / suddenly a wild goose cry fills the sky.”