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

2006/2/20 16:19:31

(XIX)

The vision of worldly people extends only to the six consciousnesses, never transcending the six consciousnesses — and the six consciousnesses themselves never transcend the entanglement of karma. There is a type of fellow who loves to discourse on the so-called grand vision of history, not knowing that the grand vision of history still does not transcend his six consciousnesses — how much less the entanglement of karma! There is another type of fellow who loves to discourse on mysticism that seeks knowledge and vision beyond the six consciousnesses, not knowing that the mysticism of seeking knowledge and vision still does not transcend the six consciousnesses — how much less the entanglement of karma! This applies not only to humans; all sentient beings in the three realms are likewise. What can be seen and what sees are only the six consciousnesses — none can escape the mutual continuation and entanglement of karma.

Heaven and earth are but an anthill. Even if one could exhaust heaven and earth, roaming freely at will, one would still be an ant in an anthill. Fools regard the infinity of heaven and earth as the greatest thing, not knowing that the infinite heaven and earth are still the entanglement of karma; the infinity of heaven and earth is in truth the smallest of infinities, and infinity itself has infinite orders of magnitude — all do not transcend the entanglement of karma. The German Cantor's set theory speaks of orders of infinity, and that from the empty set one can construct all well-ordered sets, and conversely all well-ordered sets can be constructed from the empty set. If one uses this to claim that all returns to emptiness, that would be crude — it still does not escape the entanglement of karma.

The mind is the accumulation of karma. The mind consists of the eight consciousnesses: eye, ear, tongue, nose, body, mental consciousness, manas, and alaya. Heaven and earth compared to alaya are as a speck of dust compared to heaven and earth; past and present compared to alaya are as a single instant compared to past and present. Fools who do not recognize manas and alaya take a speck-of-dust heaven and earth, a single-instant past and present, as an inescapable prison — much like an ant that takes its anthill as infinite heaven and earth and thereby imprisons itself. And yet, even if one could penetrate this speck-of-dust heaven and earth, this single-instant past and present, one would only slightly comprehend how a mustard seed contains Mount Sumeru — how could one know that Mount Sumeru is contained within a mustard seed?

A verse:

The Milky Way can scarce contain a claw,
Yet a floating bubble suffices as a perch.
Smashing stars, churning sun and moon —
Heaven and earth, a single ball of mud.