Chán Zhōng Shuō Chán's Reply to Tang Yao ID's Reply

Chán Zhōng Shuō Chán 2006-07-28

Tang Yao ID replied today to this ID's post "Tang Yao, who understands neither Confucianism nor Buddhism — don't frame Buddhism with the Confucian concept of 'Human nature is self-endowed, Buddha-nature is humanly achieved'!" It seems the biggest accusation is that this ID has a bad attitude. But this ID is not a fan of that former Yugoslav football coach, and has no interest in the nonsense of "attitude determines everything."

As for the question of what constitutes framing, Tang ID seems to think that "human nature is self-endowed, Buddha-nature is humanly achieved" is too good a statement to count as framing. But so-called "good" is relative — what seems good at one level of understanding may be nothing at all. "Good" is a value judgment; "framing" is an act — the two don't connect. Furthermore, if Tang ID insists that it only counts as framing if it's written in black and white as "human nature is self-endowed, Confucian-nature is humanly achieved," then as long as the one doing the framing doesn't tattoo the words "I'm framing" on their face, there's no framing — in which case, courts should just hire fortune tellers. As for what this ID "understands" — you bring up "Let the mind arise without dwelling anywhere." So what does this mind understand? And what doesn't it understand? What does it give rise to? And what doesn't it give rise to?

Additionally, Tang ID brought up Mao Zedong's "universalization of education, integration of study and application, popularization of philosophy." These don't seem to be Mao Zedong's original ideas — they're merely restatements of things said by predecessors. Moreover, on the relationship between knowledge and action, some of Mao Zedong's ideas are still far from thorough understanding, probably all caused by this pseudo-proposition of "popularization of philosophy." Even from the perspective of Chinese cultural tradition — mind is principle, pertaining to every person's body and mind, present in every moment — what need is there for a pseudo-proposition like "popularization of philosophy"? Philosophy that can be popularized is nothing but pseudo-philosophy. True philosophy has never been apart from the masses in the first place — what is there to "popularize"?

Since this reply has far too little technical content, making it hard for this ID's response to even fill 500 words, I'll end with some words not directed at any particular ID but for everyone's mutual encouragement: 1. Everyone must die. 2. Dead people are no longer people. 3. No one should be a secondhand hearer who swallows everything uncritically. 4. Every person is a Yao or Shun — they just stifle themselves. 5. Don't be a spittle-swallower. Everyone has a brain and a tongue — make your own voice heard, instead of turning yourself into a parrot.