擊石火閃電光

Readings

Pinyin: jíshíhuǒ shǎndiànguāng

Wade-Giles: chi-shih-huo shan-tien-kuang

Hangul: 격석화섬전광

Korean MC: gyeokseokhwa seomjeongwang

Korean MR: kyŏksŏkhwa sŏmjŏngwang

Katakana: ゲキシャッカセンデンコウ

Hepburn: gekishakka sendenkō

the spark from striking a flintstone, a flash of lightning

• Something "spontaneous" or "instantaneous," — the way the awakened mind functions — without being caught up in discursive deliberation. Also written 擊石火似閃電光. From 直下如擊石火似閃電光 "… exactly like the spark from striking a flintstone, similar to a flash of lightning." 〔碧巖錄 T 2003.48.179a3〕 This expression was used in the Chan tradition as a kōan: i.e. a set phrase, attributed to a Chan patriarch, that was often "raised" 擧 as a topic for comment and frequently cited by later Chan masters. Within the Chan tradition, moreover, the locus classicus for 如擊石火閃電光 seems to be in the discourse record of Baofu Congzhan 保福從展 ( – 928): 《五燈會元》>卷7： 上堂。此事如擊石火。似閃電光。搆得搆不得。未免喪身失命。(CBETA, X80, no. 1565, p. 154, b2-3) "This matter is like the spark from striking a flintstone, similar to a flash of lightning. Whether you grab for it and obtain it or grab for it and don’t obtain it, you are still [literally "have yet to avoid being"] a corpse that has lost its life."

  "This matter" 此事 refers to the "great matter of birth and death" 生死大事, the understanding of which is the awakening of a buddha. What Baofu seems to mean is that it is not something that can be reached for, solicited, grabbed, or established (all meanings of 搆) by conceptual thinking under any circumstances, although some people do imagine (falsely) that they have done so. Rather, resolution of the "great matter" occurs in a way that is spontaneous and instantaneous, like a spark or lightning. The expression "corpse that has lost its life" 喪身失命 is a metaphor for the state in which a person clings deludedly to conceptual entities as if they really existed as imagined. The following passage is an example of Baofu’s words being raised 擧 as a kōan:

  (明覺禪師語錄) 擧。保福示衆云。此事如擊石火閃電光。搆得搆不得。未免喪身失命。(T 1996.47.672c12–13).

  Whenever Yuanwu used the expression 擊石火閃電光, which was often, he was commenting on or at least alluding to that kōan (the words of which should be marked by quotation marks when translating). However, both Yuanwu and Dahui do criticize and make fun of people who deludedly cling to the words 擊石火閃電光, expecting to "attain" 得 awakening in a flash, as if it were some kind of really existing thing.

  [resp. Griffith Foulk, Charles Muller, Jimmy Yu]

Dictionary References:

Copyright © 2010 -- Charles Muller

generated: 2013-10-07