Great Realization

       When Zen Master Daichi of Hyakujozan in Koshu (successor of Baso, called Ekai in his lifetime) gives informal instruction, an old man is generally present. He always listens to the Dharma along with the monks, and when the assembly retires, the old man also retires. Then unexpectedly one day he does not leave. The master eventually asks him, “What person is this, standing before me?”

The old man answers, “I am not a person. In the past age of Kasyapa Buddha, I used to live [as master] on this mountain. Once a practitioner asked me, ‘Do even people in the state of great practice fall into cause and effect, or not?’ I answered, ‘They do not fall into cause and effect.’ Since then I have fallen into the body of a wild fox for five hundred lives. Now I beg you, Master, to say for me a word of transformation. I long to be rid of the body of a wild fox.”

Then he asks, “Do even people in the state of great practice fall into cause and effect, or not?”

The master says, “Do not be unclear about cause and effect.”

At these words the old man immediately realizes the great realization. He does prostrations and says, “I am already rid of the body of a wild fox, and would like to remain on the mountain behind this temple. Dare I ask the master to perform for me a monk’s funeral ceremony?”

The master orders the supervising monk to strike the block and to tell the assembly, “After the meal, we will see off a deceased monk.” All the monks discuss this among themselves, saying, “The whole community is at ease and there is no sick person in the nirvana hall. What is the reason for this?”

After the meal, the master is seen leading the monks to the foot of a rock on the mountain behind the temple, and picking out a dead fox with a stick. They cremate it according to the formal method. In the evening the master gives formal preaching in the Dharma hall and
discusses the preceding episode.

Obaku then asks, “The man in the past gave a mistaken answer as a word of transformation, and fell into the body of a wild fox for five hundred lives. If he had not made any mistake at any moment, what would he have become?”

The master says, “Step up here. I will tell you.” Obaku finally steps up and gives the master a slap. The master claps his hands and laughs, and says, “You have just expressed that a foreigner’s beard is red, but it is also a fact that a red-beard is a foreigner.”

 Excerpt from Dogen's Shobogenzo Volume IV, Nishijima and Cross, Numata Center for Buddhist translation and Reserach, 2008, pages 57-58