I. What This Concept Is About
1. The Literal Meaning, and the Depth That Literal Words Cannot Hold
Taken apart character by character, 「从上来事」 (cóng shànglái shì, "the matter transmitted from above") is remarkably plain: 「从上」 means "from former generations, handed down continuously from the ancient sages"; 「来事」 means "that matter which has come down, that stretch of causes and conditions." Put together, it refers to the single matter of inquiry that the successive patriarchs of the Chan school have transmitted from the past down to the present, unbroken to this day.
And yet, in the *Jingde Transmission of the Lamp*, no master ever gave it a definition. A monk asks, "Please, Master, raise the essential points of the matter transmitted from above." The master does not enumerate past events, does not cite scriptures; he only answers, "In the morning face southeast, in the evening face northwest" (朝看东南暮看西北). When the student asks whether this understanding is correct, he is cut off again by "In the east room they light a lamp, while in the west room they sit in the dark" (东屋里点灯西屋里暗坐). Elsewhere, a monk asks, "What is the matter transmitted from above?" The master answers with a single word: "Abide" (住). The monk presses, "How am I to take it up?" The master says, "What a pity—the dragon's head has turned into a snake's tail" (可惜龙头翻成蛇尾).
This is not literary wit, nor is it deliberate mystification. The master answers with east, west, south, north; with morning and evening, light and dark; with dragon's head and snake's tail—deliberately refusing to let this matter become an object fixable by name and form. The moment you say "it is this…" or "its meaning is…," the dragon's head has already turned into a snake's tail.
So the first characteristic of the concept 「从上来事」 must be stated clearly: it exists as the "topic" of a Chan inquiry, yet refuses to exist as a "answer" that can be defined. It points to a place, but hides that place; it makes you ask, but does not let you answer. This is the exact opposite of the familiar knowledge template of "concept—definition—example—application."
2. It Cannot Be Claimed as One's Own Through a Small Measure of Intellectual Understanding
In the *Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Dahui Pujue*, the passage concerning the practitioner Zunpu is the most crucial internal cross-section of this concept:
Zunpu had previously been "satisfied with having attained little" (得少为足), holding himself in high regard, yet what he saw was not yet stable. After Dahui repeatedly tested and pressed him, he suddenly "shed off all the previous evil knowledge and evil understanding, and only then began to know definitively that the matter transmitted from above is indeed without measure or limit" (脱去从前许多恶知恶解，方始了知从上来事，果无限量). Note the phrasing here—Dahui is not teaching Zunpu a new doctrine; he is forcing him to shed his old views. Only after shedding did Zunpu "know definitively"; and after that knowing, he found that this matter "is indeed without measure or limit," utterly incommensurate with the little bit he had previously imagined he held in his hand.
More importantly, the original text says that at this point Zunpu's "upward eye was not yet fully opened" (向上眼未开彻)—he had touched the threshold of the gate, but the gate had not yet fully opened. This is an extremely fine distinction in the Chan school: entering the edge of this matter, and fully opening to its entire scope, are two different things. 「从上来事」 permits one to have a moment of "definitive knowing," but does not permit one to take that moment as the destination; it lets you know that this matter is real, but does not let you think you have finished knowing it.
3. Four Related Terms That Cannot Be Substituted for One Another
Several similar-sounding terms appear in Chan literature, and beginning readers easily confuse them. Their boundaries must be made clear:
- 從上來事 (cóng shànglái shì, "the matter transmitted from above"): refers specifically to that matter of inquiry, transmitted through the generations and still present today, which can be investigated and asked about. It is the "matter" itself, the object of inquiry. - 從上諸聖 (cóng shàng zhūshèng, "the sages transmitted from above"): refers specifically to those sages who appeared successively in former generations and transmitted this matter. It is the "persons" side—the ones on whom the matter depends. - 一大事因緣 (eka-mahā-kāraṇa-hetu-pratyaya, "the single great cause-condition"): in the *Jingde Transmission of the Lamp*, this comes from the mouths of the sages themselves, referring to the reason for which the sages appeared in the world—the cause, the motive. Chan Master Baoci Huilang says, "The sages transmitted from above appeared in the world for the sake of a single great cause-condition, transmitting and announcing to one another in turn" (从上诸圣为一大事因缘故出现于世，递相告报), stringing the three into a chain: the sages appear for one great cause, transmit and announce it in turn, and what they announce is precisely 「从上来事」. - 一段大事因緣 (yīduàn dàshì yīnyuán, "a single great cause-condition"): a special phrase in the *Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Dahui Pujue*, referring to the matter to be taken up in the present moment. The original text says it "existed before the world ever was; when the world is destroyed, it has not moved so much as a single hair's tip" (未有世界，早有；世界坏时，亦不曾动着一丝毫头), and describes it as "like the sky covering all, like the earth supporting all" (如天普盖，似地普擎). What this phrase highlights: this matter does not waver with the formation and destruction of worlds, does not waver with the arising and ceasing of moment-to-moment thought. Every person has, beneath their own feet, a stretch that "neither sinks nor floats" (不沈不掉底)—only most people do not know it, because of restlessness and scatteredness.
The four terms point to different facets of the same matter—the phenomenal aspect, the sages, the cause, and present-moment assumption. If you carelessly swap them for one another, you dismantle the chain. The reader only needs to remember one sentence: A person appears because of one great cause; they transmit and announce it in turn; what they transmit and announce is precisely the matter transmitted from above; and this matter, beneath our very feet, has never left.
4. Where Practice Lands: Everyday Functioning in Response to Conditions
Elsewhere, Dahui brings the investigation of this matter down into daily life: Do not wrongly grasp the past, do not crave the future, do not dwell in the present; when adverse and favorable circumstances appear, respond to conditions accordingly, without being dragged along; invoke it at all times, and over a long time it matures, until "mindlessly you smash through the lacquer bucket."
This passage does not directly repeat the four characters 「从上来事」, yet it explains how a person who investigates this matter lives: not sitting on a cushion waiting for enlightenment, but in each present moment of favorable or adverse circumstances, watching whether you are being dragged. The one who is dragged is precisely the one who, because of restlessness and scatteredness, does not know that beneath their feet there is a stretch that "neither sinks nor floats." The one who can be master of themselves invokes it moment after moment, until at some point "mindlessly smashes through the lacquer bucket"—not a carefully planned breakthrough, but the moment when the mind stops straining, and that thing which had been covering everything shatters on its own.
At this point in the discussion, the outline of 「从上来事」 has emerged: it is that matter transmitted through the generations down to the present, hidden beneath the feet of every present moment; it can only be personally seen after shedding the old evil knowledge and evil understanding; once seen, it cannot be claimed as one's own; and one cannot rest in language and concepts about it.
II. A Walkthrough in Everyday Life
The hardest thing about explaining 「从上来事」 is that once it is translated into modern language, it gets read as just another "principle"—you nod when you finish reading, then go back to scrolling your phone. To do justice to this classical material, I will walk through its boundaries using several scenarios contemporary people will recognize. Please note: the following is not about mapping 「从上来事」 onto "a certain psychological state" or "a certain life attitude"; rather, the scenarios are meant to illuminate the cognitive mode it refuses.
Scenario One: The "Definitive Knowing" Illusion in the Age of Paid Knowledge
The most familiar scenario of our time—you buy a course on emotional management, read twenty long-form articles, bookmark fifty golden quotes, post on social media "Aha, so that's how it is." You feel you have "come to know" the matter: how family of origin affects emotions, how mindfulness regulates anxiety, how boundaries protect the self.
This is exactly what Dahui calls "satisfied with having attained little, holding oneself in high regard" (得少为足，自许甚高). You mistake "knowing about" for "knowing definitively." What you know is secondhand description, secondary distilled discourse about the matter; but that thing which requires you to "shed off the many previous evil knowledges and evil understandings" is not in the discourse. The next time emotion strikes, you find yourself exploding as usual, depleting yourself as usual, and none of those bookmarked quotes are of any use—this is the contemporary version of "the upward eye not yet fully opened": you have touched the gate, but the gate has not opened, because you have never actually let go of your reliance on those secondhand words.
Scenario Two: "I Know All the Theory" in Intimate Relationships
Two people quarrel and give each other the cold shoulder for three days. You have read five books on communication; you know the four steps of Nonviolent Communication; you know childhood attachment styles; you know "emotions are messengers." You tell your friend: "I know all of it. I know which pattern I'm repeating."
But the next argument, the same accusation flies at you, and you are instantly ignited. Not because you lack knowledge, but because that knowledge has become new armor—you use it to prove to yourself that you are "aware," and in doing so, you avoid the actual process of feeling, of enduring, of shedding the armor.
The Chan record says, "In the east room they light a lamp, while in the west room they sit in the dark" (东屋里点灯西屋里暗坐)—you light a lamp in one room and see the "pattern," while in the other room you still sit in the dark, inside the pattern. This is Zunpu's situation: you can name the pattern, yet you have not been pulled out of it.
Scenario Three: The "Raise the Outline" Mistake in the Workplace
"Please, Master, raise the essential points of the matter transmitted from above" (从上来事请师提纲)—this question has countless contemporary versions. A new hire asks the boss for an outline; a new project starts and everyone begs the leader to "highlight the key points." Everyone wants a summary, a map, a formula.
In the *Jingde Transmission of the Lamp*, the master answers, "In the morning face southeast, in the evening face northwest" (朝看东南暮看西北). The meaning: there is no map; the map is in the present of each step. Morning's matters are seen according to morning's direction; evening's matters are seen according to evening's direction—you think this is a brush-off, but it is actually prying you loose from the presupposition that "there must first be an outline, then execution."
Modern management theory says "there are no best practices, only the practices best suited to the present moment." At one point this intersects with the Chan meaning, but the former is still in the form of knowledge, while the latter demands: will you let go of the obsession that "an outline must come first"? If the boss draws you a map, and you walk by the map, you will never walk outside the frame of the map.
Scenario Four: The Paradox of the Meditation App
You download a meditation app and complete the ten-minute daily practice for a hundred days. You have mastered breathing techniques, body scans, the steps of loving-kindness meditation. You think you now know how to practice meditation.
In the *Jingde Transmission of the Lamp*, Great Master Ziyi answers with a single word: "Abide" (住). The monk presses, "How am I to take it up?" and is rebuked: "The dragon's head has turned into a snake's tail" (龙头翻成蛇尾). What is "abide"? It is to stop the pressing, stop the pursuit of "a further method," stop treating meditation as just another skill to unlock. The moment you open that app, you are already doing something else—you are pursuing the label "I know how to meditate," not abiding.
The hundred-day streak, the completion certificate, the social-media check-ins—these are the contemporary "satisfied with having attained little, thumping one's chest in self-approval" (得少为足，点胸自许). That single word "abide" is not asking you to learn one more technique; it is asking you to stop all techniques and return to that which is not in the app, not in the record.
Scenario Five: The Trap of Self-Narrative
Contemporary people are keen to write their own "growth narrative": how I was before, what awakening I went through, how I am now, what I will become. This narrative gives one the feeling of being on an "upward" path.
But Dahui's words are: "Do not wrongly grasp the past, do not crave the future, do not dwell in the present" (不妄取过去，不贪着未来，不住现在). A past "awakening" need not be used for self-aggrandizement; a future "enlightenment" need not be used for self-flagellation; a present "state" need not be used for self-indulgence. You think you have "known definitively," and then you begin to construct a self-image around that "knowing"—this itself is a new "evil knowledge and evil understanding," a new layer to be shed.
This is the sharpest edge of the concept: it gives you hope (this matter is real, not false), yet does not let you use that hope as an identity.
The Place Where It Is Easiest to Map Wrongly
The reader most easily maps 「从上来事」 onto "some kind of higher life wisdom," "some kind of enlightened state," "some kind of mystical spiritual experience." All three mappings are wrong.
It is not a state, because it "existed before the world ever was" (未有世界，早有)—it is not a place you go to reach, but something that has always been there. It is not wisdom, because it refuses to be organized into entries of wisdom. It is not an experience, because an experience can be remembered, ruminated, turned into conversation fodder; what it demands is "shedding"—shedding everything you use to frame it, including the experience itself.
III. Why Contemporary People Need It
You might ask: what does this thing from the Chan school, which refuses so thoroughly to be conceptualized, have to do with a modern person armed to the teeth with algorithms, information feeds, performance metrics?
Precisely because of this age, it is more relevant than in any previous age.
1. The Gap Between "Knowing About" and "Knowing Definitively" Has Never Been So Vast
This is the golden age of "knowing about." Books on mindfulness, books on emotions, books on habits, books on happiness, books on death—you can "know about" almost anything. But you have also never experienced so clearly: knowing about does not solve the problem.
The reason 「从上来事」 has a lacerating force for contemporary people is that it names our era's core pathology in one stroke: we treat "acquiring knowledge about something" as "knowing that something definitively." We think that finishing a book means we understand the book, that finishing a course means we have mastered the course, that uttering a concept means we have changed a reality.
The Chan school's way of testing this "matter transmitted from above" is precisely a sudden blow to this illusion—you may be full of learning, yet still "light a lamp in the east room while sitting in the dark in the west room." This is not an ancient problem; it is the problem behind every "read," every "liked," every "bookmarked" of ours today.
2. The Algorithmic Age's "Thumping One's Chest in Self-Approval"
The logic of contemporary social media is almost the industrial-scale amplification of what the Chan school calls "thumping one's chest in self-approval" (点胸自许). I post a status, get a hundred likes, and those likes in turn confirm my "awareness," my "growth," my "awakening"—I think being seen is being confirmed, and being confirmed is being real.
What 「从上来事」 demands is shedding that layer of skin alone, in a place with no external confirmation. No likes, no course certificates, no witnesses—can you, in that present moment when adverse and favorable circumstances arise, avoid being dragged? Can you, in that instant when the boss rebukes you publicly, in that moment when someone close says something hurtful, in that hour of solitary anxiety late at night, still have beneath your feet a stretch that "neither sinks nor floats"?
3. We Need a Word That Is Not for Sale
The contemporary knowledge market has turned almost every word into a commodity. Even "mindfulness" has been sold as an app, a certificate, a weekend workshop. Even "self-awareness" has been packaged as a personal brand. Even "looking inward" has become a consumer posture.
The wonder of the word 「从上来事」 is that it has never been packaged, and cannot be packaged. You cannot sell it, because the seller cannot tell you "what you will get after buying." You cannot write a course syllabus for it, because its very nature is to refuse a syllabus. You cannot put "Mastery of Congshanglaishi" on your LinkedIn, because its mode of existence is precisely an objection to "mastery."
In an age when everything tries to be productized, a concept that refuses productization is itself a cooling remedy. It reminds you: in your life there are still things that cannot be optimized, cannot be subscribed to, cannot be upgraded—and precisely these things are worth spending a lifetime "knowing definitively."
4. It Is a Mirror That Reflects the Self Whose "Upward Eye Is Not Yet Fully Opened"
More importantly, this concept allows us to carry hope without arrogance. It acknowledges that "definitive knowing" is real—Zunpu did, at a certain moment, "know definitively that the matter transmitted from above is indeed without measure or limit." But it also warns: that moment is not the same as "fully opened." Each of us is, in some facet, a Zunpu—having touched a little, seen a little, yet still in the state of "the upward eye not yet fully opened."
The person who acknowledges this is closer to the truth of this matter than the one who declares they have "thoroughly understood." The contemporary world is not short of self-declaring people; it is short of people who are willing to admit they have not yet fully opened, and are still investigating.
IV. Common Misreadings and Clarifications
Misreading One: Taking 「从上来事」 as Some Kind of Historical Anecdote
The most superficial misreading is to read 「从上」 as "in the past," take 「从上来事」 to mean "an event handed down from the past," and then go look up Chan history, read patriarch biographies, collect gong'an anecdotes.
This completely misses the character of the term. **The masters in the *Jingde Transmission of the Lamp* never follow the two characters 「从上」 back into historical depth; they all answer with immediately visible scenes like "In the morning face southeast, in the evening face northwest" and "In the east room they light a lamp, in the west room they sit in the dark." What has been transmitted from above is not a story; it is a matter that can still be touched beneath one's feet today**. Read it as history, and you have read something living as something dead.
Misreading Two: Thinking That "Definitive Knowing" Means "Understanding a Principle"
Many people read the Zunpu passage and think Dahui is saying: "Through study, you will come to understand the principle of the matter transmitted from above."
But the word "definitive knowing" (了知) here has a very specific referent—it is the personal seeing that shines out from the emptied place after the old "evil knowledge and evil understanding" suddenly falls away. It is not having one more principle known; it is having one layer of obstruction less. It is not something newly added to the mind; it is something shed from the body.
If you read it as the syllogism "study—understand—master," you are still standing in the position of "satisfied with having attained little, holding yourself in high regard."
Misreading Three: Conflating the Four Related Terms
As noted above, 「从上来事」, 「从上诸圣」, 「一大事因缘」, and 「一段大事因缘」 each have their own emphasis. Carelessly replacing or merging them dismantles the chain.
The most common error is to read 「从上来事」 directly as 「一大事因缘」. The former is the phenomenal aspect, the object of inquiry; the latter is the cause of the sages' appearance, the reason for coming. To take the phenomenal aspect as the cause is to take what is transmitted as the motive for transmitting—ask "what was transmitted," and be answered with "why it was transmitted"—in Chan terms, this is exactly "the dragon's head turned into a snake's tail."
Misreading Four: Thinking This Concept Can Be "Systematically Studied"
The trap contemporary readers most easily fall into is treating 「从上来事」 as an entry in the Chan knowledge system and "systematically studying" it: looking up definitions, reading papers, taking notes, making flashcards, writing articles.
But the inner character of this concept is precisely a refusal to be treated that way. The Chan school never wrote a definition for it, never listed an outline for it; it can only be asked, never answered; it can only be known definitively in examination, never remembered from a book.
Any act of "learning it in" is itself the contemporary form of the very "evil knowledge and evil understanding" it is meant to counteract. This is not to say one should not read relevant materials; it is to be vigilant at every moment: am I reading it, or am I using it to reinforce a more sophisticated self?
Misreading Five: Thinking That "The Upward Eye Not Yet Fully Opened" Is a Regret
Reading "Zunpu at this point still had not fully opened his upward eye," some feel it is a pity—as if he had fallen just short of perfection.
In fact, this sentence left by the Chan school is a profound compassion. It tells you: you are still on the road; this matter is real, not false; you have touched its edge, and that itself is cause for rejoicing; but do not stop here, because there is still an unopened portion ahead. It neither lets you despair (this matter is real and not false—you have already touched it) nor lets you become self-satisfied (you have not yet fully opened—you must still investigate).
This sense of proportion is what contemporary people most need and most lack: we are either excessively despairing or excessively self-satisfied, and almost never able to rest in the clear-eyed humility of "I have seen a little, but there is still what I have not seen."
Misreading Six: Reading "Mindlessly Smashing the Lacquer Bucket" as "Unconscious Breakthrough"
Dahui says, "Invoke it at all times; over a long time it matures; until mindlessly you smash through the lacquer bucket" (时时提撕，久久纯熟，直至无心撞破漆桶). Contemporary readers easily read "mindless" (无心) as "unconscious," "not deliberate," "relaxed and natural."
But "invoke it at all times; over a long time it matures" is the precondition—without long invoking and maturing, there is no question of the moment of smashing. "Mindless" is not a synonym for slackness; it is the state when invoking has been pressed to its extreme and the mind no longer strains. It is the relaxation that comes after maximum tension, not the laxity of one who has never been tense.
Reading it as "just relax" is another contemporary version of "satisfied with having attained little."
A Final Clarification
The concept 「从上来事」 is most easily misread as "some kind of mystical spiritual experience" or "some kind of ineffable state." But what it truly points to is not any mystical experience; it is that most everyday, most unremarkable, most easily overlooked thing between you and yourself—
In each present moment when favorable and adverse circumstances arise, are you dragged, or are you master? In each instant when a thought rises, do you grasp it, or do you not wrongly grasp? In each present moment, are you dwelling in some story about yourself, or is there still beneath your feet a stretch that "neither sinks nor floats"?
This matter is not mysterious, not abstruse. It was transmitted from above, and it has never left—only most of the time we do not even know it is there.
Knowing that it is there is the beginning of "definitive knowing"; acknowledging that it is still there and that we have not yet fully opened is the beginning of investigation; in each present moment, being willing to return there without arrogance and without fear—this itself is that one matter transmitted from above down to the present.