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

2006/2/2 18:53:05

Freedom is entanglement. Those in this world who vainly seek liberation by trying to escape entanglement do so through no more than four paths: First, seeking in matter external to the mind. Second, seeking in mind external to matter. Third, groping about where mind and matter are one suchness. Fourth, exploring between neither-mind-nor-matter. Beyond these four, there is no other path. All four are delusory conceptual fixations — mere idle theorizing.

Those who seek in matter external to the mind use mind to reflect matter, making mind a function of matter. The so-called "investigating things to extend knowledge" — exhausting the principles of matter through practice, so that the mind is liberated. This necessarily presupposes that the principle of matter exists and that the mind can apprehend matter. The so-called "principle of matter" is in truth delusory conceptual fixation. There is this matter, therefore there is this matter's principle. The so-called principles of the universe that we can know exist only because we first exist in this particular universe. The development of relativity and quantum mechanics has already proven that the so-called principle of matter, divorced from an observer, is meaningless. The universe in which we find ourselves is actually the manifestation of our collective karma — how could this be the only universe! Those who seek in matter external to the mind are in truth seeking within the collective karma that we share, mutually entangled and continuing — a phantom play.

Those who seek in mind external to matter fantasize that the mind can be liberated apart from matter. But apart from matter, how can the mind exist? Some say that what cannot be separated from matter is the deluded mind, and that there is an ever-abiding true mind — without going, without coming, originally liberated, capable of being the master of all things. Truly the ravings of a feverish mind. These people aspire to eliminate the false and preserve the true, yet they do not know the truth of the false's falseness, the falsity of the truth's truth. Seeking truth is actually falsity; eliminating falsity leaves no truth. Our minds are aggregates of material phenomena — this mind originally has nowhere to rest. Mutually entangled and continuing — a phantom play.

Those who grope about where mind and matter are one suchness speculate that the so-called monism of mind-matter is the true source of the universe — outside mind there is no matter, outside matter there is no mind. Exhaust the mind and you exhaust principle; exhaust principle and you comprehend the mind. Return to the source, and one liberation liberates all, one completion completes all. This type of discourse is extremely popular, and most of those today who call themselves practitioners of Zen talk this way. But the myriad dharmas return to the One, and the One is still the root of birth and death. The so-called "returning to the source" — there is originally no origin, the source is not a source. That which can serve as origin and source is neither origin nor source. Mutually entangled and continuing — a phantom play.

Those who explore between neither-mind-nor-matter establish a source that is neither mind nor matter, and seek liberation by taking refuge in it. Some call it God, some call it a deity, some call it the True Lord, some call it Truth, some call it Liberation, some call it the Sovereign, some call it Brahman, some call it the Great Dao, some call it True Emptiness — and so on, too many to enumerate. These people are simply engaging in deluded wishful thinking, falsely negating mind and matter to establish something that is neither mind nor matter, not knowing that not-mind is mind and not-matter is matter. Not-establishing yet establishing everywhere. Mutually entangled and continuing — a phantom play.

The so-called "beyond these four, there is no other path" — this is Zen, free from the above four kinds of idle theorizing. Zen is not a path. "No other" is not none, and "none other" is not no-other.

A verse:

Entering the worldly city drunk, through how many siege walls,
In an instant, joys and sorrows dissolve into poured wine.
The years sing back — the heart grows vast and great,
Heaven and earth shift like shadows — the eyes become clear and bright.
All conditions, all self, all the same affliction,
Neither false nor true, neither the second name.
Hiding at the East Sea, mountains galloping like horses,
On Tiantai's Huading Peak — what is going on?