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

2006/2/13 15:18:53

(XV)

There is a type of fellow who claims suffering and bliss are all illusion, greed and delusion are all illusion, birth and death are all illusion — recklessly arguing there is no suffering or bliss, no greed or delusion, no birth or death. They cling to illusion as illusion, negating cause and effect — the most deluded of the deluded. Illusion is not illusion — there exist suffering and bliss, greed and delusion, birth and death. Those who traffic in empty words and idle talk cling to the absence of suffering and bliss while being turned by suffering and bliss, cling to the absence of greed and delusion while sinking in greed and delusion, cling to the absence of birth and death while being swept along in birth and death, cling to non-clinging while clinging to actual clinging — the most deluded of the deluded.

Suffering and bliss, greed and delusion, birth and death are ultimately empty, yet there exist suffering and bliss, greed and delusion, birth and death. If suffering and bliss, greed and delusion, birth and death were not ultimately empty, then there would be no suffering and bliss, no greed and delusion, no birth and death. Suffering and bliss, greed and delusion, birth and death: not escaping yet escaping, not entering yet entering, not leaving yet leaving, not turning yet turning. Among wrong views in this world, none is greater than clinging to illusion as illusion and negating cause and effect. Such people are forever sunk in the bitter sea of birth and death; until their wrong views are dissolved, when will there be a day of escape!

Those who cling to illusion as illusion and emptiness as emptiness truly do not know what illusion is or what emptiness is. Illusion is truth; emptiness is existence — it is not that truth appears outside of illusion, or that existence exists outside of emptiness. Truth is illusion; existence is emptiness — it is not that illusion appears outside of truth, or that emptiness exists outside of existence. To be without suffering and bliss — that is suffering and bliss. To be without greed and delusion — that is greed and delusion. To be without birth and death — that is birth and death. To seek to end suffering and bliss, greed and delusion, birth and death by departing from suffering and bliss, greed and delusion, birth and death — there is no standing for this.

To regard no one and hold no dharma — still a great error. To contain ten thousand phenomena in one's radiance and ten thousand dharmas in one's mind — still an affair at the shore of birth and death. The foolish people of this world fabricate the so-called Creator, God, True Lord, Brahman, Great Dao, Wuji, Heaven, the One, Principle, Fundamental Law, Being — all such things — hoping to rely on them to escape birth and death. None of these escapes the measure of consciousness; all are manifestations of the karmic consciousness of greed, anger, delusion, doubt, and arrogance. Continuously entangled, they merely add to delusory karma and the cycle of transmigration.

A verse:

The five skandhas — originally empty yet existent,
A hundred years end as a single corpse.
Pitiable, the travelers in the red dust,
Everywhere spinning silk like silkworms.