[Listen to audio]
Chan Master Baizhang had just finished his Dharma talk when an old man stepped up to speak with him. The master asked, “Who is standing before me?” The old man replied, “I am a wild fox. I practiced on this very Mount Baizhang in the time of the ancient Buddhas. Later on, a student monk asked me, ‘Do great practitioners still fall under cause and effect, or not?’ I answered, ‘They do not fall under cause and effect!’ Because of this, I have been reborn in the body of a fox for five hundred lifetimes. Please speak a word that will liberate me from the wild fox’s form.” Master Baizhang compassionately agreed. The old man joined palms and asked, “Do great practitioners still fall under cause and effect, or not?” Chan Master Baizhang replied, “They’re not ignorant of cause and effect.” With these words, the old man had a great awakening. Then he bowed and took his leave. The next day, Master Baizhang led some monastics to a mountain cave behind the monastery. There, using his staff, he pulled out the carcass of a wild fox, and ordered it to be cremated in accordance with the rites of a deceased monastic. “They do not fall under cause and effect” and “They are not ignorant of cause and effect” are as different as earth and heaven. “They do not fall under cause and effect” means that people who have cultivated are beyond the retribution of cause and effect. This is not true. But it is true that whoever has cultivated and awakened to the Way will be “not ignorant of cause and effect.”