He Xin, Matters of the Chan Lineage Are Grave — Don't Recklessly Unify!
2006/3/15 19:49:03
This He Xin has always sold his age as authority and his ignorance as knowledge. Today, in his "On the Classical Spirit of Chinese Painting and the Decline of Contemporary Painting Style" (preface to The He Xin Painting Collection), I got another taste of it. So let me spend a little time setting him straight.
He Xin, using the pretext of devoting himself to the Chan painting lineage of Yujian, Wen Riguan, and Muqi from the late Southern Song and early Yuan period, giddily began parading his He-Xin-brand knowledge of Chan Buddhism. In it, there is actually a passage like this: "In Buddhism, the human problem is divided into three for consideration. The first is the Desire Realm; the second is the present world where desires are relatively faint, namely the Form Realm; and finally there is the Formless Realm where both desire and form have vanished, which is the Realm of Awakening (Buddha)." The errors here are so elementary — truly too He Xin. The Formless Realm equals the Realm of Awakening (Buddha)? Chan Buddhism's focus is precisely on liberating oneself from the Desire Realm and Form Realm to reach the state of the Formless Realm? Even when an Arhat enters the cessation attainment, they are already beyond the highest heaven of the Formless Realm — the "Neither Perception Nor Non-Perception" heaven. To get something this kindergarten-level wrong and still dare to wave the Chan banner? Could it be that Old He also wants to play mantou for a round?
Someone who dares commit such kindergarten-level errors — it would be strange if the following mistakes didn't appear. All along, Chan Buddhism has been eroded by Laozi-Zhuangzi influences. Almost everyone lumps Chan Buddhism together with Laozi and Zhuangzi, spouting nonsense about Chan Buddhism being a Chinese-ized, Laozi-Zhuangzi-ized version of Buddhism. Therefore when this old man He says "and going up one barrier from Zhuangzi studies, one sees the Chan mechanism," he's merely parroting others in his Grand Master of Chinese Studies fashion. He Xin, He Xin? (What's new, what's new?) What meaning could a Chan Buddhism this feeble and this tangled have, other than letting the likes of Old Man He give it a Grand-Master-of-Chinese-Studies-style oral workout?
This fellow grandiosely displays the male trait of being even more fearless the more ignorant he is, going about his Grand-Master-of-Chinese-Studies routine, claiming that "wild fox" actually means "talking nonsense" [a pun on 胡说 (hú shuō, nonsense) and 狐 (hú, fox)]. Since it's nonsense, then let's see what happens on the thirtieth of the twelfth lunar month, and find out whether it's "hú" (nonsense) talk or "hú" (fox) talk. This fellow also says things like "the reason Chan Buddhism positions itself outside the teachings, transmitting the mind-seal alone and not establishing words or letters, is in order to break through the obstruction of apophatic expression." But when has apophatic expression ever obstructed? Flowers appearing before diseased eyes — making trouble out of nothing.
Very He-Xin-ishly, I request this fellow: in the future, you may hide a pair of scissors and secretly do some Hu Ge-style editing, but do not Grand-Master-of-Chinese-Studies-ishly think you can triumphal-march your way into propping your upper teeth against your lower teeth with a mantou and spout old nonsense as new. When the time comes, what can't be "hú-ed" (nonsensified) will be "hú-ed" (foxified), and what can't be made "xīn" (new) will turn "chén" (stale). Very He-Xin-ishly, I request this fellow: first study the case of Jiashan meeting Chuanzi, then look at the case of Deshao meeting Fayan. Matters of the Chan lineage are grave — don't recklessly unify!