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

2006/3/16 22:12:26

The fools of this world take emptiness as emptiness, existence as existence, not knowing that emptiness is neither emptiness nor existence, that existence is neither existence nor emptiness. The five-poison evil world, greed-anger-ignorance-doubt-pride — none departs from the great field of perfect enlightenment. Great Demon Kings are mostly tenth-bhumi bodhisattvas. To speculate about vast realms with narrow perception — one is merely a frog viewing heaven from a well. There are further fools who, taking emptiness as non-emptiness and existence as non-existence, delusionally posit a mysterious something that is neither-emptiness-nor-existence, that is simultaneously-existence-and-simultaneously-emptiness, falling into the quagmire of verbal formulas without knowing it. Emptiness, existence, neither-emptiness-nor-existence, simultaneously-existence-simultaneously-emptiness — all such formulations are speculative verbal constructs, utterly without real meaning. Purity and defilement, bondage and liberation, good and evil are likewise. The fools of this world mostly seek their livelihood among such verbal formulations, merely adding to delusory karma — truly pitiable.

Even the Confucians say "the village paragon is the thief of virtue" — how could the Zen practitioner employ divination and sorcery to bewitch the world, confuse the waters of the Jing and Wei, and affiliate with the demonic rhetoric of "three teachings share one origin" or "five religions unite as one"? One who holds right knowledge and right views should wield the staff and shout against such things — how much less should one compromise with those of wrong knowledge and wrong views? "Even the dharma should be relinquished, how much more what is not dharma." Those who take Zen as not distinguishing right from wrong, as confusing the orthodox with the heterodox, hold evil knowledge and evil views. Better to let the grass before the gate grow three feet deep than to engage in the business of peddling the Tathagata — how can one grasp the verbal formulas of treating all equally and uniformly to engage in market exchange?

Since Yunmen and Fayan, those with right knowledge and right views have been rare, and lion-worms have run rampant. Those who use the verbal formula of "not establishing a single dharma" to carry out non-dharma and heterodox dharma — throughout history, they have been legion. The fools of this world take emptiness as a verbal formula, an origin, a function of negation, and so forth, not knowing that such interpretations never depart from the delusory speculation of the mental consciousness. The karma of greed, anger, ignorance, doubt, and pride — can it be emptied by the mental consciousness thinking "emptiness"? What can be emptied is not emptiness; what is able to empty is not emptiness. The karma of greed, anger, ignorance, doubt, and pride is not empty — it is not that which can be emptied or that which empties; that is why it is empty. If greed, anger, ignorance, doubt, and pride were already empty, or could be emptied, or were what empties, then there would be nothing left to empty. Delusory karma, like a shadow following the body — how can one escape it through the emptiness of verbal formulas? Those in this world who are attached to empty words should truly take warning.

A verse:

Dragons and snakes mingle, rats rule as chiefs — tusked beasts can scarce fill their mouths, disasters everywhere.
After the rooster, no monkey — blood spilled in vain; before the sheep, there is a dog — hearts cannot open.
Neighing in the wind, the northern horse grieves as tumbleweeds blow; panting at the moon, the southern ox fears the sun's return.
The borrowed tiger bullies heaven — truly detestable; the rabbit's brush has no ink — all turns to ash.