従容録 第二十九則 風穴鉄牛

The Core

The Shoyoroku Case 29: Fengxue's Iron Ox is a koan in which Fengxue Yanzhao presents that "the Mind-seal of the patriarchs is like the working of an iron ox (the truth beyond movement and stillness)," sets a trap of dualistic views by asking "whether to stamp or not to stamp," and severely defeats Elder Lupi, who fell into discursive thought. Usually, people say that it refers to "the absolute state beyond movement and stillness (being and non-being) or the importance of warning against indecisiveness and exercising decisiveness." However, in this dictionary, we define it as a practical lesson: "rejecting staying in the mud of conceptual understanding or discursive thought (hesitation and indecision), and fulfilling immediate dynamic response (total dynamic functioning) here and now."