..续本文上一页tood waiting.

　　(Somebody once brought me a crushed beer can as the customary gift. A very good gift.)

　　"Where have you been

　　" asked Huang-po.

　　"Recently you deigned to favor me by sending me to Ta Yu," said Lin-chi.

　　"What did Ta Yu have to say

　　" asked Huang-po.

　　Lin-chi then related what had happened.

　　Huang-po said, "I”d like to catch that fellow and give him a good dose of the stick"

　　"Why say you”d like to. Take it right now," said Lin-chi and immediately gave Huang-po a slap.

　　(Huang-po was a very big guy. Some people say he was seven feet. Lin-chi wasn”t that big.)

　　"You lunatic!" cried Huang-po. "Come back here!"

　　Pulling the tiger”s whiskers Lin-chi gave a shout, "Roar!"

　　"Attendant, get this lunatic out of here and take him to the monk”s hall," said Huang-po.

　　Later, Kuei-shan Ling-yu (Jap. Isan Reiyu) in telling the story to Yang-shan Hui-chi (Jap. Kyozan Ejaku) asked him, "On that occasion did Lin-chi get help from Ta Yu or from Huang-po

　　"

　　"He not only rode on the tiger”s head, but he seized his tail," replied Yang-shan.

　　(He got help from both people.)

　　I think there are a number of things that are worthy of note here. Lin-chi was prepared to be patient with himself. He waited around for three years, actually, in the temple before anybody took any notice of him. Actually, people had noticed him, but they hadn”t wanted to help him too much.

　　There”s one koan where the student says, "I”m pecking from inside. I beg you, master, please peck from outside." The idea is that a chicken is pecking from inside the shell and at the right time the mother hen hears that and pecks from the outside and helps break the shell. But the teacher was reluctant to and he said because the problem is if you peck too soon, the chicks not ready to come out. If the mother hen pecks too soon, the chick won”t be able to survive outside the shell.

　　So the head monk just sort of watched him and then decided that the time was right and so he encouraged him. And I think that our friends in the dharma often are very helpful in a way that the teacher can”t be. This was so for me. I had friends who really encouraged me when I went to sit. Say, to sit up late at night in sesshin, which I kind of wanted to do, but nobody much was doing, but I had a friend who did. Stephen Mitchell, actually, who used to like to sit up late at night and used to think it was a good thing and so I used to sit up with him. And his view of the dharma was so high and serious and profound that it really encouraged me, too, in my hard times. And I think that”s very important, you know. If you can see, then encourage others. And if you can”t see, hang around with those who can. If you can see a little bit encourage others.

　　There”s a story about the head monk whose name was Mu-chou Tao-ming (Jap. Bokushu Domei). There”s a poem about him. He became famous.

　　Bitter and harsh, biting like a dog, He opened up Lin-chi of the north And made him a great tree. (So it attribute the interaction to his friend, really.) He pushed YŸn-men over a precipitous cliff. His words were like dry firewood. (They blazed quickly.) His reason cannot be systematized.

　　(He was the person who actually broke YŸn-men Wen-Yen”s (Jap. Ummon Bun”en) leg. So his kindness was rather rough sometimes. When he was very old, YŸn-men was much younger. When he was a very old man. He was about 100 years old, actually, close to 100 years old. I think he kicked YŸn-men out when he was about a hundred. He made straw sandals for the pilgrims and would put them out secretly, but he wouldn”t let people in if he didn”t like their footsteps. They”d come to dokusan and he wouldn”t open the door. And YŸn-men went a number of times and finally he liked his footsteps and he got in and he seized him immediatel…

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