Once when all the monks were out picking tea leaves the Master said to Yang-shan, "All day as we were picking tea leaves I have heard your voice, but I have not seen you yourself. Show me your original self." Yang-shan thereupon shook the tea tree.
The Master said, "You have attained only the function, not the substance." Yang-shan remarked, "I do not know how you yourself would answer the question." The Master was silent for a time. Yang-shan commented, "You, Master, have attained only the substance, not the function." Master Kuei-shan responded, "I absolve you from twenty blows!"6
Commentators differ on who won this exchange and whether Kuei-shan was really satisfied. Another story relates similar fast-witted but serious repartee.
When he returned to the monastery, Yang-shan reported to the master, "Today, two Ch'an monks were exposed by me." The master asked, "How did you expose them?" Yang-shan related the incident and the master said, "I have now exposed you as well."7
The translator Charles Luk suggests that Kuei-shan had "exposed" Yang-shan by showing that he still distinguished between himself and the other monks.
Yet another story, reminiscent of Nan-ch'uan, further dramatizes the school's teaching of nondiscrimination. The report recounts a present that Kuei-shan sent to Yang-shan, now also a master and co-founder of their school:
Kuei-shan sent [Yang-shan] a parcel containing a mirror. When he went to the hall, [Yang-shan] held up the mirror and said to the assembly, "Please say whether this is Kuei-shan's or Yang-shan's mirror. If someone can give a correct reply, I will not smash it." As no one answered, the master smashed the mirror.8
Kuei-shan's answer to one pupil who requested that he "explain" Ch'an to him was to declare:
If I should expound it explicitly for you, in the future you will reproach me for it. Anyway, whatever I speak still belongs to me and has nothing to do with you.9