Chán Zhōng Shuō Chán: Entanglement Is Not Entanglement, Zen Is Not Zen — A Dead Tree's Dragon Song Illuminates the Great Thousand Worlds (IV)

2006/2/1 22:46:38

Beyond this academicized speculation, the reckless practice of those who make practice into something fixed is likewise a favorite trick of the lion's parasites. Setting aside their single-minded dull sitting — even ten thousand miles of pilgrimage, when has that moved a single step? Even imperishable existence through ten thousand kalpas, even ten thousand sharira — what has any of it to do with Zen? To know yet not know, to act yet not act — even one who knows and acts is still a blockhead!

Those of the Confucian-Daoist ilk, with their talk of scholarship and practice, love to discourse on the so-called relationship between knowledge and action. Knowledge easy, action hard; knowledge hard, action easy; first knowledge then action; first action then knowledge; unity of knowledge and action; simultaneous knowledge and action — all such variations are born from the wild fantasies of dry wisdom. Yet outside knowledge there is no action, outside action there is no knowledge. Not-knowledge is knowledge; not-action is action. One is not even one — what unity? What oneness?

Those of the philosophical ilk, with their talk of scholarship and practice, love to discourse on the so-called relationship between mind and matter. Mind one, matter two; mind two, matter one; mind and matter as one suchness; mind and matter as dualism; neither mind nor matter; both mind and matter — all such variations are born from the wild fantasies of dry wisdom. Yet outside mind there is no matter, outside matter there is no mind. Not-mind is mind; not-matter is matter. Not-both yet both, neither-both yet neither — one yet not one, two yet not two, neither one nor two. Who is one? Who is two?

Those of the religious ilk, with their talk of scholarship and practice, love to discourse on the so-called relationships of bondage and liberation, sacred and ordinary, purity and defilement. God is sacred, I am ordinary; God liberates, I am bound; God and I are one suchness; God is pure, I am defiled — all such variations are born from the wild fantasies of dry wisdom. Yet I am originally not-I, God is originally not-God, sacred is originally not-sacred, ordinary is originally not-ordinary. One suchness is not suchness, suchness-one is not one. Because of liberation comes bondage, because of purity comes defilement. Not-because is because, not-becoming is becoming. Because becoming, becoming because — who is the cause? Who is the result?

A verse:

Life is a dream — what kind of dream?
Wild geese fall on autumn mountains, the moon sinks into the lake.
Half a lifetime nursing a thousand years of resentment,
A whole life forever at the fork of two paths.
Who seeks life and who seeks death?
Who plays master and who plays slave?
Who reaches the gateless place with nowhere to go?
The gateless gate has long since entered the dead man's cave.
Who is confused and who is awake?
Who is pure and who is defiled?
Who possesses the thing of no-attainment, no-realization?
No-attainment has already made the great tree wither.
In the dead man's cave, gnawing at the great tree,
In Zhuangzi's dream, provoking the butterfly to weep.
Weeping shatters the mountain autumn, the moon beneath the lake,
The startled geese look back — all the way to India.