Tianran warming his private parts

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Roasting The Buddha

Sengai Gibbon 1750-1837 Intense frigid cold winds, Need fuel for the hearth. Call this roasting the Buddha?!         Your eyebrows                  and beard                         will be singed off!

Shāo Fó

Xiānyá Yìfàn 1750-1837 Hán gāo fēng liè Yí yōng huǒlú Ruòyán shāo Fó Duòluò méixū

Translator:

Dongbo 東波

Notes: Having one's beard fall off was a kind of spirtual retribution. This brush painting by Sengai is about the story of the Chan monk 天然 739-824, a disciple of 石頭 Shitou. One frigid cold winter evening Tianran was staying at a temple in Changan. Chattering with cold he took one of the wooden Buddha images from the altar and burned it in the stove to warm his backside. When the temple director saw this he was shocked and exclaimed, 'How can you do such an onerous thing?' Tianran replied, 'I'm collecting sarira from the Buddha image's ashes'. 'How stupid to think you can get sarira from a statue!, retorted the monk. 'Then please hand me another, it's a cold night', replied Tanxia. See the book Sengai, The Zan Master, by Daisetz T Suzuki, New York Graphic Society, 1971

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