The Biyan Lu (碧岩录) — the Blue Cliff Record — is the Everest of Chan literature. Compiled by Xuedou Chongxian in the 11th century and commented on by Yuanwu Keqin in the 12th, it contains 100 koans with verse commentaries and extensive notes.
Case 1 is the door.
The Case
Baizhang Huaihai (720–814) gave a lecture. An old man attended regularly. One day, the old man stayed behind and said:
"I was a Chan master in the time of Kashyapa Buddha. A student asked me: 'Does an enlightened person fall into cause and effect?' I answered: 'No.' For this, I was reborn as a fox for 500 lives. Now I ask you: does an enlightened person fall into cause and effect?"
Baizhang said: "The enlightened person is not blind to cause and effect."
The old man was immediately liberated.
What Happened
The previous answer — "No" — denied the law of cause and effect. It said: enlightenment puts you outside the chain of causation. This is wrong. It's the error of nihilism — confusing emptiness with nothingness.
Baizhang's answer — "not blind to cause and effect" — affirms that the enlightened person sees causation clearly. They don't escape it. They see through it.
The Fox
500 lives as a fox. Not as punishment, but as consequence. Cause and effect aren't a justice system. They're a description of how things work.
The fox-body was the physical manifestation of a wrong view. When the view was corrected, the fox-body fell away.
Why This Is Case 1
The Blue Cliff Record opens with this case because it establishes the ground rule: Chan is not about escaping reality. It's about seeing it clearly. Emptiness doesn't negate the world. It reveals the world as it is.