Dàhuì prior to his understanding

　　Dàhuì’s training prospered at Bǎofēng Monastery.  He soon was treated as a senior student and assigned teaching duties, at which he excelled.  Toward the end of Dàhuì’s stay at Jewel Peak, Zhàntáng called the younger monk to him and made the following comment:

“Senior monk Gao, you understood my Chán at once.  When I ask you to explain it, you explain it well.  When I ask you to hold up stories of the ancients and comment on them in prose (nián gǔ拈古), or make up verses commenting on the sayings of the masters of old (sòng gǔ頌古), to give instructions to the monks (xiǎo cān小參), or to give sermons (pǔ shuō普說, lit general instructions), you also do all these things well. There is only one thing that is not right.  Do you know what it is?”

Dàhuì replied, “What is it I do not know?”

Zhàntáng said, “Katz! You lack this one release.  If you do not obtain this one release, when I am speaking with you in my quarters, there is Chán, but the minute you leave my quarters, there is none.  When you are awake and thinking, there is Chán, but when you are asleep, and then there is none.  If you are like this, then how are you going to defeat samsara?”

Dàhuì replied, “This is exactly what I have doubts about.”  However, he did not receive Dharma-transmission at that time, and in 1115, when Dàhuì was twenty-seven by Chinese reckoning, Zhàntáng died.

Dàhuì kept trying, so we should too.