Dingzhou Shizang was crossing a bridge one day at the
same time as a group of three Buddhist scholars. The scholars recognized from
his robe that Dingzhou was a Zen monk, and one of them asked him: “It’s said
that the river of Zen is deep and that its bottom must be sounded. What does
that mean?”
Without hesitation, Dingzhou took hold of the
questioner and would have thrown him into the river if the two companions had
not intervened.
“If your friends hadn’t rescued you,” Dingzhou told
the man, “I would have let you sound the bottom of the river for yourself.”
Zen Masters of China: 224, 244
The Story of Zen: 151-52
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