DIALOGUES WITH TAN-HSIA (TANKA)
One day, Master Tan-hsia T’ien-jan (Tanka Tennen)1 came to visit the Layman. He had just passed through the gate when he saw the Layman’s daughter, Ling-chao, holding a basket of vegetables.
Tan-hsia said, “Is the Layman here or not?”
Ling-chao dropped the basket, stood up, and clasped her hands together on her chest.2
Tan-hsia again asked, “Is the Layman here or not?”
Ling-chao picked up the basket and walked away, and Tan-hsia left.
When the Layman returned home, Ling-chao told him what had happened.
The Layman said, “Was it Tan-hsia?”
Ling-chao said, “He’s gone now.”
The Layman said, “You’ve spilled the milk in the mud.”3
1. Tan-hsia T’ien-jan (739–823) was one of the four principal dharma heirs of Shih-t’ou and was a friend of the Layman’s when they were young men. It is reported in other sources (most notably the Ancestors’ Hall Collection) that at some point in his youth the Layman became acquainted with Tan-hsia, and they went to Chang-an to study for the Mandarin exams together. At some point in their journey, they decided to change course and visited Ma-tsu’s monastery. From this we can infer that, though his birth date is not given in the text, the Layman was near the same age as Tan-hsia, who was born in 739. Although they started on the Zen path together, they eventually went their separate ways. Tan-hsia joined the sangha, while the Layman did not. Tan-hsia was known as T’ien-jan, “the Natural”—a nickname reportedly given to him by Ma-tsu. Well known for his unconventional Zen style, Tan-hsia appears in a famous anecdote burning a wooden Buddha image to keep warm in the winter:
One freezing cold day in winter, Tan-hsia took the wooden Buddha statue from the altar in the temple where he was staying and used it to make a fire. By chance, the resident priest came along and saw him. “How can you burn up my wooden Buddha?” he asked.
Tan-hsia poked the coals with his staff and said, “I’m burning it to get at the sacred remains.” [The “sacred remains” refer to the bits of bone that were left after the Buddha’s body was cremated.]
The resident priest said, “How can there be any sacred remains in a wooden Buddha?”
Tan-hsia replied, “If not, let’s burn the two attendant statues as well.”
At this, the resident priest’s eyebrows fell out. [This is a Zen metaphor meaning his lack of true understanding was revealed.]
After Shih-t’ou’s death in 790, Tan-hsia wandered around the country for many years before settling at Mount Tan-hsia in Henan Province toward the end of his life, when he was eighty-one. (He took his “master’s name” from the place where his temple was located, as was the Zen custom in those days.) It is recorded that, four years after settling at the monastery, Tan-hsia declared he was going out on pilgrimage again and died while putting on his sandals for the last time. The anecdotes recorded here apparently occurred during Tan-hsia’s wanderings while he stayed in the Layman’s neighborhood and depict the time when Tan-hsia and the Layman reestablished their old friendship. Tan-hsia outlived the Layman by almost twenty years.
2. A gesture of greeting in old China.
3. A wasted effort. Layman P’ang is saying that it was unnecessary for Ling-chao to try to test Tan-hsia’s Zen.