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One day, Deshan descended to the dining hall, bowls in hand. Xuefeng asked him, “Where are you going with your bowls in hand, Old Teacher? The bell has not rung, and the drum has not sounded.” Deshan turned and went back to his room.

Xuefeng brought up this matter with Yantou. Yantou said, “Deshan, great as he is, does not yet know the last word.”

Hearing about this, Deshan sent for Yantou and asked, “Don’t you approve of this old monk?”
Yantou whispered his meaning. Deshan said nothing further.

Next day, when Deshan took the high seat before his gathering, his presentation was very different from usual. Yantou came to the front of the hall, rubbing his hands and laughing loudly, saying, “How delightful! Our Old Boss has got hold of the last word. From now on, no one under heaven can outdo him!”

This koan also appears in the Gateless Barrier as case thirteen. It’s interesting when the same koan appears in two different collections. The koans in the Book of Equanimity were originally collected by Hongzhi one hundred years before Wumen used it in the Gateless Barrier collection. These collections are like playlists, the favorite “tunes” of the person who was making the collection. This “tune” would seem to have been popular for over 100 years. It makes you wonder what it was that made it so popular.

One of the points that stands out for me is that it is one of the few examples of a teacher learning something. I am assuming that Deshan’s talk the next day was different in a good way because he had learned something. Teaching is learning, it is a practice. In one version of this koan, when Deshan called Yantou in, he asks Yantou, “Do you have a problem with this old student.” I like that. Someone once said that the only difference between a student and a teacher is that a teacher knows there is no difference.

Do you think there’s a difference?

The story involves a cook, his best friend and their meditation teacher. The cook’s name was Xuefeng. He’d been practicing meditation for a long time; now with his third teacher, whose name was Deshan. Xuefeng had problems with his previous two teachers. At the place he was practicing before Deshan’s place, the teacher there suggested he leave and go to Deshan’s place, after Xuefeng had dumped all of the rice for the meal for all of the people onto the ground in response to the teacher’s question about whether he separated the rice from the dirt or the dirt from the rice.

Xuefeng’s best friend at Deshan’s place was named Yantou and though younger than Xuefeng he had a deeper understanding of Zen, which is to say, a deeper understanding of meditation. That’s what the word “Zen” literally means, “meditation.” Working again as a cook, as he had with his two previous teachers, felt good to him. He liked cooking, it gave him something to hold onto and focus on; gathering vegetables, boiling water, cutting carrots. He had somewhat of a rigid character structure and feeling the need to have something to hold onto was part of that for him.

One day as Xuefeng was preparing the meal, very busy and absorbed in what he was doing, he noticed that his teacher, Deshan, was coming down from his room carrying his eating bowls, as if he expected to have a meal. But the meal was not ready. Xuefeng had not rung the bell that signaled the meal being ready, what was his teacher doing coming down now?

Being of a rigid character structure, Xuefeng responded to his teacher in a rigid way and called out somewhat disrespectfully, “Where are you going? I haven’t rung the bell to signal that the meal is ready!” Deshan stopped walking, turned around, and returned to his room without saying a word. Shortly after that Yantou came into the cooking area to check on his friend and see how things were going. Xuefeng told him, with some relish, about what had just happened with Deshan. Yantou shook his head and replied, “As good as he is as a Zen teacher, Deshan doesn’t yet know the last word of Zen.”

Of the 10 basic precepts of Buddhism, gossiping is said to incur the most negative consequences, the most negative karma. That is surprising, especially given what the other precepts are: killing, stealing, lying, etc. The explanation is that though each instance of gossiping incurs only a slight negative consequence, we do it so much that the negative consequence from gossiping adds up to the point that it outweighs the negative consequences of all the other precepts combined.

That said, what Yantou said to Xuefeng about Deshan not knowing the last word of Zen got around the place pretty quickly and before the day was out Deshan had summoned Yantou to his quarters. When Yantou arrived Deshan asked him if he had a problem with the way he was teaching. Yantou responded by whispering something into Deshan’s ear and Deshan nodded his head and dismissed Yantou. We might wonder what it was he whispered to have brought about such a result.

Later that night, after Deshan had finished with his regular evening talk, which we are told was very different from his usual talk, Yantou jumped up and yelled, “Wonderful! Wonderful! Deshan has finally gotten the last word of Zen!” And that is the end of the story/dream. Your dream. What do you make of it? Which character calls out to you the most? What is it that puzzles you the most? What is it that reminds you of you the most?

—David Weinstein

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David Weinstein Roshi, Director of Rockridge Meditation Community