Stories
What the tradition tells about its people, told plainly, with the source. Most of it cannot be dated; all of it has been repeated for centuries, and that is the record.
Deshan Xuanjian had spent his life on the Diamond Sutra. He carried a commentary on it. When he heard that teachers in the south were saying that this very mind is Buddha, a teaching outside the scriptures, he set out to refute them.
Zhixian, a student of Linji, came to Moshan intending to test the nun who taught there, and if she was no good, to overturn her seat. The nun, Moshan Liaoran, sent an attendant to ask whether he had come to look at the mountain or for the dharma. For the dharma, he said. She took the high seat and he came up.
The monks of the east and west halls at Nanquan’s were arguing over a cat. Nanquan picked it up and said: if any of you can say a word, I will spare it; if not, I will cut it in two. No one answered. He cut the cat in two.
When Layman Pang decided it was time to die, he sat down and told his daughter Lingzhao to go outside and see how high the sun was, and come back and tell him when it reached noon. She went out, came back, and said the sun was at noon and there was an eclipse. He went out to look.
After years in hiding, Huineng came to Faxing monastery in Guangzhou, where the master Yinzong was lecturing on the Nirvana Sutra. A flag was moving in the wind. One monk said the wind was moving. Another said the flag was moving. They went back and forth.
Two monks arrived at Zhaozhou’s. He asked the first whether he had been there before. No, the monk said. Go drink tea, said Zhaozhou. He asked the second the same. Yes, I have, the monk said. Go drink tea, said Zhaozhou.