"Come here: let us discuss something," commanded Huang-po and as Lin-chi drew nearer, he thrust his hoe into the ground and continued, "There is no one in the world who can pick up my hoe."
However, Lin-chi seized the tool, lifted it up, and exclaimed, "How then could it be in my hands?"
"Today we have another hand with us; it is not necessary for me to join in."
And Huang-po returned to the temple.6
This story can be interpreted many ways. John Wu says, "Obviously he was using the hoe as a pointer to the great function of teaching and transmitting the lamp of Ch'an. . . . [This was] a symbolic way of saying that in a mysterious manner the charge was now in his hands."7 However, as Freud once remarked concerning the celebrated phallic symbolism of his stogie, "Sometimes, madam, it's just a cigar," and one suspects that in this little slapstick episode, the hoe might possibly be just a hoe.
Another exchange between Huang-po and Lin-chi may have more dialectical significance. According to the story:
One day Huang-po ordered all the monks of the temple to work in the tea garden. He himself was the last to arrive. Lin-chi greeted him, but stood there with his hands resting on the hoe.
"Are you tired?" asked Huang-po
"I just started working; how can you say that I am tired?"