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

2006/3/6 10:28:35

All empty words of this world amount to nothing more than grasping the one as one. This "one" — whether Dao, or principle, or the Changes, or mind, or matter, or sovereign, or emptiness, or illusion, or the Infinite, and so on — are all the delusory discriminations of the mind. The formula "the Dao gives birth to the one, the one gives birth to two, two gives birth to three, three gives birth to the ten thousand things" is precisely this pattern. There is a type of lion-worm who declares "the ten thousand dharmas return to the one, the one is emptiness and gives birth to the ten thousand things," truly not understanding what emptiness is, taking emptiness as a speculative object that serves as a creator — how lamentable. Emptiness is simultaneously provisional naming and simultaneously the Middle Way. Most worldly people take the Middle Way to mean holding to the center while abandoning the two extremes, not knowing that the Middle Way is simultaneously emptiness and simultaneously provisional naming.

Nihilistic emptiness is a delusory imagination of the mental consciousness. Those who take nihilistic emptiness as something that can nihilistically empty — with one who nihilistically empties and an object nihilistically emptied — are fools. Those who, relying on an emptiness-nature that is not "empty nothingness," nihilistically empty this nihilistic emptiness, are the blind leading the blind without knowing it. Dependent origination is emptiness of inherent nature; emptiness of inherent nature is dependent origination. How could there be emptiness of nature outside of dependent origination, or dependent origination outside of emptiness of nature? Furthermore: conditions, arising, nature, and emptiness are all simultaneously, and conditions are neither arising, nature, nor emptiness; emptiness is simultaneously conditions, arising, and nature, and emptiness is neither conditions, arising, nor nature. Dependent origination and emptiness of nature — simultaneously emptiness, simultaneously provisional naming, simultaneously the Middle Way.

Western thought loves to discuss so-called phenomena and essence. Eastern Confucianism, Daoism, the Book of Changes, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Islam, and the rest — when have they ever escaped this thought pattern? It is merely fifty steps versus a hundred steps. Phenomena and essence — and thus we have God's creation and redemption, Hinduism's return to Brahman, Confucianism-Daoism-Changes' return to their respective Dao. The faces of dispute differ but the pattern is the same. Lion-worms, with the views of fools as their own, babble that Zen originates from Laozi and Zhuangzi, that the three teachings are the same, that five religions unite as one — they draw Buddha's blood without knowing it.

The followers of Laozi and Zhuangzi do not depart from the speculation of the mental consciousness — how could they know what Zen is? The books of Laozi and Zhuangzi remain extant today; the views therein are not right knowledge and right views — how can they discuss Zen? To equate Laozi and Zhuangzi with Zen is like the Neo-Confucian and Mind-Philosophy schools stealing from Zen — they cannot even get the skin, and only display their crudeness. Later came the school of internal alchemy, which stole from Zen to discourse on the dual cultivation of nature and life, and turned around to slander Zen for cultivating nature without cultivating life. In the end, they knew neither what nature is nor what life is — spitting into the sky only to soil their own faces, a contemptible lot hardly worth mentioning. Confucian learning, the Changes, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Islam, Catholicism, Protestantism, and the rest likewise do not transcend delusory discrimination, the manifestation of the karma of greed, anger, ignorance, doubt, and pride — not worth discussing.

A verse:

Without wine, food has no flavor; without poetry, wine has no charm.
Drink up a thousand rivers — how could one utter even a single phrase?