Opening the Buddha's Knowledge and Vision

This is a draft version from an upcoming book by John Tan. Will continued to be updated before final release.

Dogen Total Exertion -- totality beyond whole and parts

Total Exertion: The Whole in Every Part 

Introduction: Seeing Dependent Arising in Action

In much of contemporary Buddhist discourse — especially within Tibetan traditions — pratītyasamutpāda, or dependent arising, is often approached primarily as a deconstructive view. It is skillfully wielded to dissolve the mistaken belief in intrinsic existence, pointing the mind toward emptiness. Its purpose is to clarify the non-arising nature of phenomena, to refine our understanding of śūnyatā, and to sever clinging to appearances as real.

While this analytical orientation is invaluable for dismantling substantialist assumptions, it also tends to leave dependent arising as something abstract or theoretical — a view to adopt, a logic to follow, a doctrine to internalize.

But what is rarely emphasized is how dependent arising is not merely a framework of negation, but also the very language and function of the world in action. In East Asian traditions such as Huayan and Dōgen's Zen, dependent arising is not only what deconstructs solidity, but what constructs the living immediacy of things. It is the formative, expressive, and radiant unfolding of reality in its full responsiveness.

Here, dependent arising is not something we merely analyze — it is something we witness, taste, and embody. Each moment, each phenomenon, each gesture is seen as the complete exertion of all conditions — not metaphorically, but functionally and luminously.

This chapter explores this dimension through the lens of Dōgen’s “Total Exertion” — a view where nothing exists on its own, and yet everything exists with utter immediacy and power. In this vision, the insight of emptiness does not erase the world, but reveals it to be seamlessly active, boundlessly intimate, and fully alive.

What follows is not a metaphysical theory, but an invitation to see and feel the radical interdependence of all things — not from the distance of conceptual analysis, but from the inside of living experience.

The Unfolding of the Whole in Each Thing

A bell rings — and in that single sound, the sky, the earth, the trees, and the listener all resound. It is not that the bell causes the world to respond. Rather, the world itself rings as the bell.

This is the meaning of total exertion: that in each moment, each phenomenon, each arising — the whole of interdependent existence is fully present, exerting itself as that appearance.

A grain of sand is not just part of a desert. It is the entire cosmos exerting itself in the form of a grain. A passing breeze is not merely moving air — it is the totality expressing itself as motion, temperature, sound, and touch. It is not that the breeze has meaning because of the sky or because of weather patterns. It has meaning because it cannot be anything apart from all that is.

This is not poetic exaggeration. It is a radical intimacy that becomes clear when the illusion of independently existing parts dissolves. When we no longer see the world as made of discrete, self-standing pieces, we realize: each thing is not merely in relation to the whole — it is a totality that transcends both whole and parts, in its current expression.

Just as in the previous example of left and right — where neither can be without the other, and both arise in a single conceptual movement — so too does each appearance arise not from itself, but from the exertion of all things.

This is not the unity of substance. It is the inseparability of display. It is not that all things collapse into one, but that all things arise as the living pattern of all others. Each part, therefore, is a holographic flash that presents infinity and totality — nothing excluded, nothing needing to be added.

To realize this is to live in suchness without leaving behind ordinary life. Walking is total exertion. Drinking tea is total exertion. Responding to a stranger’s gaze is total exertion. There is no center from which actions arise — they are the universe acting through and as you, yet without a ‘you’ apart from it.

Beyond Parts and Wholes

To speak of “parts” and “wholes” is already to enter the realm of conceptual division. We imagine a whole composed of smaller elements — a sum greater than its pieces — or we think of parts as fragments waiting to rejoin some unified source. But this thinking already presupposes something broken, something divided and in need of mending.

Total exertion cuts through this paradigm entirely.

It is not that the part belongs to a whole, nor that the whole contains the part. Rather, in the moment of its appearance, each so-called part is fully exerting the whole — not symbolically, but functionally and vividly.

When you raise a hand, this is not your hand acting alone. It is time, gravity, earth, breath, and sky — all exerting themselves as this gesture. There is no “hand” apart from all these. Nor is there a “whole” somewhere outside coordinating it. There is only this: the arising of this gesture as the complete manifestation of infinite conditions.

This is why Dōgen never said “wholeness is in everything,” but that each dharma-position is the total manifestation of the entire dharma realm. He was not pointing to a collective container but to the immediacy of a flower blooming as the exertion of ten thousand things.

The trap of substantialism lies in believing that parts must build up to a whole, or that wholes must somehow transcend parts. But both views assume that something real stands behind what appears.

Total exertion shows otherwise: there is no base behind what appears — appearance is the function of the base being absent. Emptiness is not a lack but a release from the need for any foundation. It is this very freedom that allows each phenomenon to shine fully, responsively, and luminously — without reduction, without residue.

When one sees through this, there is no longer any need to gather parts or preserve a whole. The sound of the bell, the opening of a door, the stillness between breaths — all are complete as they are, because they are everything, appearing just so.

The Time-Being of Total Function

Time is often mistaken as a backdrop — a neutral flow in which events occur, ticking forward moment by moment like beads on a string. But this is the view of time as a container, as something separate from what happens within it.

Dōgen overturns this with a startling insight: each thing is time, and each time is being. This is uji — the Time-Being. A mountain is not in time; the mountain is time. Your breath is not happening in a moment — it is that moment. A single thought, a bird in flight, the opening of a hand — each one is the full exertion of time as that event.

What appears as sequence — past, present, future — is not a movement across a line. It is the dynamic presence of all interdependencies exerting themselves now, as this appearance. The past exerts itself not from behind, but through this moment. The future does not lie ahead, but opens right here, as readiness. The present is not a dot between two unknowns, but the entire functioning of the ten directions as immediacy.

This insight liberates time from linearity and self from continuity. You do not persist through time — you are the total function of conditions arising now. There is no fixed self moving through changing time. There is only time-being, expressing as this movement, this thought, this silence.

Even what appears as delay, stagnation, or waiting is total function. 

A still pond is not outside of time — it is time appearing as stillness. 

A long pause in a conversation is not absence — it is the full flowering of mutual responsiveness without words.

When time is no longer seen as background but as full participation, each moment becomes infinitely alive, never repeated, never partial. Nothing is just “happening” — everything is acting. And this action is not your own, yet nothing can exclude you from it. You are time, just as the bell is time, the sky is time, and even this sentence is time fully being itself.

The Language of Dependent Arising in Action

When the Buddha spoke of dependent arising, he was not offering a theory of causation. He was revealing the nature of experience itself — fluid, co-arising, ungraspable — where nothing comes into being by itself, and nothing stands alone. In the light of total exertion, dependent arising is no longer seen as a passive structure of interrelation, but as the very voice of reality in motion.

Each thing appears because everything else exerts itself as that thing. A bell rings, not because of a sequence of isolated causes, but because the world is configured to ring now, as that moment. The hand does not reach because a mind commands it, but because the sky, gravity, flesh, memory, and breath all converge as reaching.

This is dependent arising as action — not the metaphysics of how things come to be, but the expressive nature of being itself. Every appearance is a functional articulation of the whole, not static or symbolic, but alive. Each word spoken, each leaf that falls, is not just caused — it is spoken by the whole web of reality.

This is why in the experience of total exertion, function and meaning arise simultaneously. You do not reflect and then act. You act, and in that movement, reflection is already present. You do not observe and then understand. You respond, and understanding dawns within that responsiveness.

The clarity of this is not found in abstraction, but in presence. When you listen deeply to the world — to a tone, a movement, a pause — you hear dependent arising not as a doctrine, but as the immediacy of luminous function. It is the bell ringing as your hearing. It is the path unfolding as your step. Nothing causes anything from outside. All is the self-exertion of interdependence appearing in real time.

This is the language of the world — not grammar or concept, but the way everything speaks everything else.

Total Responsiveness Without Self

In total exertion, there is action, there is clarity, there is seamless responsiveness — but there is no self behind any of it. There is no agent orchestrating the unfolding, no observer watching from behind the eyes. The world moves, and that movement includes you, but not as a fixed center — as a participatory openness.

The reflex to claim “I am doing” is strong. It arises from the habit of placing a self at the hub of experience. But in the lived insight of total exertion, there is only the doing, the arising, the manifesting — no one apart from it.

You speak, and speech comes from conditions far beyond your control: breath, language, context, emotion, and the sound of the other’s voice. You act, and action flows from hunger, wind, footsteps, memory, and mood. And yet, there is full presence, full clarity — not because you are controlling it, but because there is no separation to interfere.

This is not a loss of agency, but the liberation of responsiveness. 

When the fiction of the independent self falls away, what remains is not passivity but intelligent, vivid response — unfiltered, unburdened, and natural. Like a mirror reflecting without effort, like a valley echoing a sound — the world expresses itself through your body-mind, yet nothing inside claims ownership.

This is why Dōgen said: “To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be verified by all things.” When the self is forgotten, all things shine — not as objects over there, but as this very intimacy of expression.

And so, when you bow, it is not you who bows. The entire world bows. When you listen, the whole sky listens. When you breathe, it is not your breath, but the breath of the universe exhaling just so.

This is the freedom of selfless function. It is the pathless path where walking, speaking, silence, and stillness are all acts of total exertion — complete, intimate, and without residue.

Interlude: Total Exertion in Science and Phenomenology

To appreciate the depth of Dōgen’s view, we may look across traditions. In physics, Ernst Mach famously proposed that inertia—the resistance of objects to acceleration—is not due to some intrinsic essence, but arises from the entire mass-energy configuration of the universe. This became known as Mach’s Principle: that every local event reflects the total relational structure of the cosmos. The spinning of a star or the swing of a pendulum cannot be isolated from the whole.

Likewise, Dōgen’s “Total Exertion” declares: there is no such thing as an isolated event. Each thing is all things functioning in concert. When you lift a spoon, the whole universe lifts with you—not poetically, but functionally, relationally, and intimately.

In philosophy, Maurice Merleau-Ponty argued that perception is not the reception of pre-given data by a separate subject, but a lived intertwining of body and world. His notion of “flesh” (la chair)—neither mind nor matter—describes a shared medium where perceiver and perceived co-emerge. There is no gap between world and awareness; they are always already folded into one another.

This echoes Dōgen’s insight that the world and the practitioner are not two. To see, hear, and feel is not to stand apart from things but to participate in their arising. Each moment of perception is total exertion: the eye, light, object, intention, and conditions all functioning as one.

In both science and phenomenology, as in Dōgen’s Zen, we find a powerful overturning of the myth of isolation. Nothing arises alone. No action is autonomous. And no moment lacks the fullness of the all.

(Chinese version here: 只管打坐：與洪文亮老師三日禪（第九十屆）——個人記錄與誠摯推薦)

Place: Taichung — “Right Dharma Eye Treasury Shikantaza Zendo”
Dates: October 2025 (three-day retreat, with a public evening talk the night before)
Guidance: Teacher Hong Wen-Liang (Sōtō Zen)

I have recently attended a retreat with Zen Master Hong Wen-Liang in Taiwan, Taichung. There are eight 45-minute sitting periods per day along with a dharma talk by Master Hong on each of the three days and the day before the retreat. Noble silence is observed. There was however, karaoke, dinner and wine after the retreat (this part is optional but I think everyone or almost everyone attended the dinner – including a Buddhist nun, although due to Vinaya rules, she of course left before the Karaoke started). Vegetarian and non-vegetarian meals are provided on all days (very delicious food). The strongest impression from these three days is how plain yet penetrating Teacher Hong’s expression is. He never courts the audience with elaborate argument, yet he points straight to the essentials of anatman (no-self) — dependent origination — total exertion. If you understand Chinese, I strongly recommend seizing the chance to attend in the future and verify this for yourself.

A Brief Portrait of Teacher Hong (as I gathered it)

• Born 1933 in Yunlin, Taiwan; graduated from National Taiwan University College of Medicine; served as a surgeon and forensic pathologist.
• After long study and practice, he entered the Sōtō lineage in Japan. He emphasizes shikantaza (“just sitting”) and opens the Way through Genjōkōan / total exertion: no thing to grasp; the Complete Activity (全機) exerts and involves the totality of all conditions in any given activity.
• Now over 90, slender and walking with a cane, yet his mind is keen and sharp, and his speech clear and precise.
• There are twice-monthly public talks; retreats are arranged according to conditions (to inquire about the next retreat, please contact the organizer here:
  👉 Right Dharma Eye Treasury Shikantaza Zendo (Facebook): https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064895641674 )

What I Heard and Noted On Site

1) The decisive seal is no-self, not “an eternal witness” or a reified One Mind

Teacher Hong repeatedly pointed out: taking “I am a pure witness / One Mind / the Absolute” as the final realization is still subtle self-grasping.

In his talks, Dr. Hong often contrasts scientific objectivity (subject studying object) with the investigation of Eastern spirituality and religions into what is prior to the split of subject–object. He adds that however, the Buddha rejected the non-dual oneness of the Upanishads. He warns against mistaking the Upanishadic Brahman or a One-Mind “Absolute” for Buddhist realization. (I believe he has read the AtR blog and thus raised this topic in his teachings. That nondual oneness can still be a subtle clinging.) The Buddhist insight is anatman, emptiness and dependent origination, not reducing everything to one real substance. It is the realization and actualization of anatman and total exertion. Zenki: Complete Activity 全機 is one of the terms used to express that the very vivid manifestation of any given phenomenon, be it a plum, a flower, a tree, birth or death, itself is the manifestation of the totality of all conditions in all ten directions and all times, free from the false separation of a seer apart from the seen, a hearer apart from sound or a knower apart from the known. Birth, death, and all activities are themselves the complete activity of the three times (past, present, future) and ten directions – hence it is said that the entire world of the ten directions is the true human body（尽十方世界真实人体）。 What matters is the living insight that nothing has self-nature (anatta/emptiness) and total exertion, and the ongoing actualization of this in conduct—moment by moment. Buddha-nature is not a static substratum but impermanence impermancing impermanence, dynamic and alive.

“Realization isn’t something that ‘happened once’ and then you’re forever realized. In any moment where conduct accords with truth, there is awakening; otherwise, delusion.” — notes from his talk (my paraphrase from retreat impressions)

For a taste of his voice and approach, you can browse compiled talks and translations. https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/search/label/Zen%20Master%20Hong%20Wen%20Liang%20%28%E6%B4%AA%E6%96%87%E4%BA%AE%E7%A6%85%E5%B8%88%29

He expressed in his own words that the Buddhist awakening is the insubstantialist nondual realization of anatman and dependent origination, there is no real duality of subject and object, knower apart from known, yet it does not reduce everything to one real substance.

2) Total exertion: birth is thoroughly birth; death is thoroughly death

Using Dōgen’s language, he taught: “Birth does not turn into death,” just as summer does not turn into winter. This neither denies continuity nor asserts permanence. It points out that each dharma is empty of own-being and functions in seamless participation with all dharmas as a complete activity right now. This very present Dharma is the exertion of all dharmas past, present, and future. Each dharma abides in its dharma position, before and after are cut off and disjointed. Precisely because there is no self-nature in all phenomena and selves, we speak of “no-birth”—which is not a denial of causality.

To elaborate: In Teacher Hong Wen-Liang’s explanation of the “birth and death” passage from Genjōkōan, birth does not turn into death and death does not turn into birth because each is the Presencing of the moment’s total exertion—like summer and winter that never transform into each other. “Birth is no-birth” does not mean annihilation or some Taoist-style immortality; it points to the fact that all phenomena are without self-nature, so there is no fixed "phenomena" or “someone” that is born, persists, and then dies. Precisely for that reason, he insisted this insight does not cancel karma: it rejects a migrating entity, not karmic continuity. Cause and effect remain unobscured (不昧因果): deeds plant seeds and ripen later, including across lifetimes, which is why ethics, vows, and good actions matter. He also contrasted “no-birth/no-death” with a Hinayāna reading of cessation: Mahāyāna speaks of no cessation, because the very arising and ceasing are empty and only the present all-inclusive manifestation is complete—yet within that completeness, dependent origination still functions and rebirth is affirmed, so misunderstanding Dōgen here as denying future lives is simply wrong. (My own note: many modern Soto teachers deny rebirth and karma, thus falling into the wrong view of uccheda-dṛṣṭi, 'the doctrine of Annihilationism' – something refuted clearly by both Buddha and Dōgen https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2023/03/did-dogen-teach-literal-rebirth-and.html . Zen Master Hong did a good critique of such wrong views. John Tan too was emphatic that we should not reject rebirth: see https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2025/09/meeting-notes-with-john-tan-and-yin.html

Nagaraja rightly said: “The problem is that Zen is widely misunderstood in the West. Because of the historical process of Zen's transmission to the West, this transmission has several problems and flaws. Among them is the impression that Zen is a more rational/materialistic/logical Buddhism that rejects fundamental Buddhist principles. In reality, we have everything Mahayana Buddhism has: karma, rebirth, deities, Bodhisattvas, mantras, mudras, devotion, ritual, blessings, merits and so on. This creates dissonance and estrangement between practitioners in temples and historical traditional communities in East Asia and practitioners in western Zen centers.”)

3) Not obscuring cause and effect

He was emphatic: “No-self ≠ no causality, no responsibility.” Because things are dependently arisen and empty, karma is even clearer. Cultivate virtue and wisdom; keep precepts and do good. This is because when conditions ripen, results appear, even into the future lifetimes.

4) Body–mind and posture: shikantaza is not piling up techniques, but whole-body participation

Although he does not elaborate this on the sessions I attended, his other videos place great weight on daily sitting and correct posture. Sitting is not a purely mental activity; it is body and mind as one—settling, letting fabrication drop, so that the habit of “subject vs. object” loosens in upright sitting and the Presencing of total functioning/total exertion is self-evident. His pointers are concrete: sit upright, care for breath and bones, and let the all-inclusive functioning (total exertion) naturally manifest itself. Shikantaza, in his words, is letting the myriad Dharmas reveal that there is no you (anatman): https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2023/12/shinkantaza-just-sitting-letting-all.html

Through meditation, he isn’t teaching “how to manufacture a special state,” but how to lay down contrivance and the clinging to a false self, so that your Buddha-nature, the truth of anatman (no-self), emptiness and total exertion appears by itself.

A Few Passages from the Handout and Lectures

• Opening Verse (Kaijing-gāthā)
  “The unsurpassed, deep, subtle, wondrous Dharma,
  Is hard to encounter in a hundred thousand eons.
  Now that I see, hear, receive, and uphold it,
  I vow to understand the Tathāgata’s true meaning.”
  With this resolve, the entire retreat is devoted to “understanding the true meaning,” not chasing a state to possess.
• From Dōgen’s Genjōkōan (as printed in the booklet)
  “To study the Buddha-Way is to study the self.
  To study the self is to forget the self.
  To forget the self is to be verified by the myriad dharmas.
  When verified by the myriad dharmas, one’s body-mind and the body-mind of others drop away.”
• On “knower/known” and both extremes (verses cited in the handout)
  “The agent (subject) ceases into the environment, the environment sinks into the subject. 
  The environment is environment because of the subject;
  the subject is subject because of the environment.
  The two arise from the one—
  do not even hold to the one.”

Comments:
“Subject” and “object” inter-are: To grasp either as ultimately real is delusion. However, understanding this is not enough: true experiential realization goes further and collapses and dissolves subject into object, and object too vanishes into subject until no trace of subject-object duality remains. Yet, do not even abide in a substantialist nondual "one substance", for that too is another subtler delusion.

• On thoughts and fixation (handout §9 highlights)
  “No-thought within thought, and not dwelling in thought…
  If thought dwells, it is called bondage.
  Regarding all dharmas, when thought does not dwell, there is no bondage.”

Comments:
It’s not a rigid “no thought at all,” but non-dwelling. Thoughts arise and are known; we neither throw them out nor are dragged by them.

• Hui-Neng and Self-Nature

As Teacher Hong explained, the Sixth Patriarch Hui-Neng—“an illiterate woodcutter” in the received accounts—initially used the phrase 「自性生萬法」 (“self-nature gives rise to the ten thousand dharmas”). He did so, Teacher Hong said, while already intending the sense of total exertion (全機／現成公案；亦稱「摩訶生命」): each event is the total, all-inclusive functioning with nothing left over. Later, seeing that 「自性」 (“self-nature”) is often a term used to refer as a substantial essence like Brahman, he dropped the character 「自」 (self) and retained 「性」(nature) only as a pointer to this all-inclusive functioning of total exertion (全機)—not a thing behind phenomena, but the immediate, selfless manifestation of the totality of all conditions. In this reading, 「自性生萬法」 was never meant to posit a metaphysical Self; it was a skillful designation aiming at total exertion here and now. Thus, when Teacher Hong cites Hui-Neng, he clarifies that the point is no fixed self-nature to grasp, only the present, entire activity—birth as entirely birth, sound as entirely sound—so that talk of “nature” does not congeal into an entity apart from the ten thousand dharmas.

• A caution about “all dharmas contained in one nature” (handout §9e)
  The text warns that phrases like “all dharmas are contained in ‘nature’; all dharmas are that nature” are easily misread as reifying a big “Nature” that everything collapses into. This Maha-Life is the boundless life beyond notions of big and small, and this is called “nature”. Teacher Hong however cautioned: do not turn “emptiness” or “nature” into a "thing" reified and grasped. What is present is dependent origination without own-being, not building a bigger “One.”

• 10. In human society, to completely realize a state with no quarrels and no conflicts—a peace like that—those “good men and good women” who only fantasize about pleasant things are in fact at greater risk. Because in this world there are many people who specialize in forming groups to deceive and take advantage of these “good men and good women.”

  “Things are not that simply good.” So long as we live as members of society, we must first become aware and prepare ourselves: no matter what, we cannot avoid mutual quarrels and mutual friction. And yet, even so, we should, while disputing and rubbing against one another, continually bow and look up toward what is higher [i.e. Truth]; and even in bowing, we still cannot help but have some amount of dispute and friction—this is precisely the condition within which we cannot avoid living.

  However, this attitude of “on the one hand bowing, and on the other hand inevitably disputing and rubbing against one another,” or the mindset that within dispute and friction one still “cherishes the wish to look up toward what is higher and more fundamental  [i.e. Truth],” is after all somewhat different from the way of living that “relies solely on the struggle for survival.”

Words from John Tan

• John Tan (2022):
  “‘Listening with the whole body’ is total exertion. This requires no prior training—it is an intuitive gnosis… a heart-to-heart communication rather than logical analysis. Once the prājṇa-eye opens, do not cage it in arbitrary systems of thought… This is why I advise you to read Hong Wen-Liang.”
  (Full context in the ATR post https://www.awakeningtoreality.com/2022/02/anatta-total-exertion-a-natural-state.html )
• John Tan (2020) — corrected phrasing:
  “The most important breakthrough post-nondual: do not subsume (everything into a universal awareness or One Mind). [The direction] is dependent origination and emptiness; or, in Dōgen’s terms, total exertion and emptiness—like Hong Wen-Liang.”
• He also said elsewhere about Master Hong:
  “There are too many insightful pointers—worth rereading again and again. It is rare to find a teacher with such intimacy with one’s empty clarity.”

Why I Wholeheartedly Recommend Attending

1. View and embodiment together: He presents no-self and dependent origination thoroughly yet down-to-earth—straight into conduct.
2. The clean power of shikantaza: Within upright posture, silence, and punctuality, the subject–object habit loosens on its own; total exertion is not a slogan.
3. Seize the conditions: Teacher is advanced in age, yet his Dharma speech is vigorous and his thinking rigorous. If Chinese is your language, now is the time.

Want to Follow Up?

• Teacher generally gives public talks twice a month; retreat dates are announced according to conditions.
• If you’re interested in joining or inquiring about the next session, please message the organizer here:
  👉 Right Dharma Eye Treasury Shikantaza Zendo (Facebook):
  https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064895641674

May this be a condition for more friends to draw near to a good teacher, and to personally verify no-self and the total functioning that is already present.

While translating Total Exertion, I realised ChatGPT likes to turn it into 'wholeness'. I gathered the following quotations to correct ChatGPT.

John Tan said years ago: 

"Though wholeness can also be said to be beyond space and time, it is an entity concept. But total exertion is totally exerted as an activity. All becomes that activity. When you write, everything is contributing in the activity of writing. Subsuming into all-embracing consciousness is a wholeness and oneness experience also."

"In total exertion, we should not only understand from the standpoint of wholeness but as one functioning, one action. When you breathe, the tree, the air, the lung, the heart, the mind, ears, eyes, toes, and the body are one functioning of breathing. There's no eye, no toes, no body, as all transcend their conventionalities into the single function. Do you understand the difference? When you say this breath is also the breath you breathed ten thousand years ago, you have totally exerted the infinite past into a single action of breathing. What does this mean? You would not call this wholeness, right? When you show me this passage of total exertion, Daowu or Dōgen are also participating in the communication of total exertion to you. If you can feel it, the past is as present and the ancient masters are as alive. If you can feel it not as beautiful words but as living experience, the whole lineage of ancient masters is transmitted without reserve, instantly."

"Freedom from all elaborations cannot be said to be "wholeness"; it is just "purity," free from all elaborations. Purity transcends both notions of parts and whole. Conventionally, parts and whole arise dependently."

"One must be able to discern clearly the difference between "wholeness" and "capacity to participate in togetherness." One is due to empty nature and therefore participates freely in dependence. Free of structures, it therefore assimilates all structures. The other has the scent of a fixed and definite structure (still an essence view). Empty in nature, consciousness never stands apart; there is no moment outside relation. Where conditions arise, it is precisely that event—sound in hearing, color in seeing, thought in thinking; where none, nothing is found to point to. Participation without a participant; dynamism without a whole."

John Tan
What master Hong Wen Liang is saying is,
from the dependent arising on parts using the scientific explanations, in each of the parts (conditions), there is no such said "image as seen“ so how does movement of coming and going arise? From the lights to the nerves system to the brain and even to the retaina, the image is inverted and not the same as the "seen image that is moving", so what and which "movement of image" are we referring to? Therefore mind's attachment of coming and going to these images are false.
• 
  
• Reply
• 3m

Chinese Original: https://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_e2c0f730010301ib.html

English Translation:

Selected Analyses from the Recorded Sayings of Chan Master Hongzhi Zhengjue

Seeking through forms and sounds misses the true path

A talk by Teacher Hong Wen-liang

Date: December 31, 2000

Venue: Main Hall, Enpo Buddhist Charity Association, Singapore

The Diamond Sūtra says, “If one seeks me by form, or seeks me by sound, that person practices a deviant path and cannot see the Tathāgata.” Think about it: many friends who cultivate now take this as a fine and beautiful state. The Diamond Sūtra clearly says so, yet when we practice we forget it. Many people while sitting, reciting the Buddha’s name, or counting breaths, hear something by the ear—mantras or the Buddha’s name resounding there—and at that moment feel it is very special and are certainly delighted. Apart from the body, the nose smells fragrance; entering a Buddha hall, sitting, reciting, chanting scriptures, before long one seems to sense the whole room filling with fragrance—the scent of sandalwood—how marvelous, and one is pleased. But is this not exactly what the Diamond Sūtra calls “seeking me by form, seeking me by sound”? To use form, sound, smell, taste, touch, and mental objects to seek the Buddha is to be unable to see the Tathāgata; it says such a person travels a deviant path—this is the way of Māra.

Yet in actual cultivation we fail to attend to this; we forget and set it aside. This must be examined. Today’s theme—seeking through form and sound, the path is not yet correct—comes from a line in Chan Master Hongzhi’s “Inscription for the Pure Joy Room.” It has the same intent as what the Diamond Sūtra just stated.

“Seeking through form” means seeing buddhas and bodhisattvas; “seeking through sound” means hearing mantra tones—as if only then one has skill in practice. In that case the path is not yet correct; practice in this way is untenable. “Not yet correct” is like walking a deviant path; it is not right. Such a simple matter, yet we insist on not believing it.

Neither going nor coming depends on appearances

If seeking through form and sound leaves the path not yet correct, how then should we seek? In practice, should it not be good for buddhas and bodhisattvas to appear? It is indeed good—but do not make a fuss over it. Do not take it as a fine sign of progress—do not! Why is “seeking through form and sound” incorrect? “Motion and stillness do not depend on mind; going and coming do not depend on appearances.” (In the original text, the character for “appearance” lacks the “human” radical.) Let me explain why this is so, adding a little brain physiology with simpler language.

First, “going and coming do not depend on appearances.” Suppose someone walks in; we say he has come in. After a while he leaves; we say he has gone out. Do we not base his appearing and disappearing, his entering and leaving, on his visible appearance? “Going and coming do not depend on appearances” means: do not rely on the bodily appearance to determine going and coming. How then do we know that he has come and gone? Even for someone of great attainment, or a truly awakened practitioner—what Chan calls “illumining the mind and seeing one’s nature,” truly discovering right awakening—if a person comes and goes, does such a one refrain from relying on the person’s appearance to say he has come and gone, and instead rely on what—his mind? his feelings? his thoughts? If the awakened one knows what the person is thinking, then when the thought comes, he knows he has come; when the thought leaves, he knows he has gone. Because the awakened one is awakened, he knows what is in that person’s mind. If this were so, then indeed he would not depend on appearance; he would know the other’s mind. “Ah, without looking at him, I look elsewhere; he has come in. I did not look at his appearance, but I have the ability to know his mind. As his thinking draws nearer, I know he has come.” Is this the meaning? If not, then what does “going and coming do not depend on appearances” mean?

Since we cannot rely on the bodily appearance, how do we know another’s coming and going? The Buddha said, “If one sees me through form, seeks me through sound, that person walks a deviant path and cannot see the Tathāgata.” We all think: “To see the Buddha, I must not see through his body.” For example, Avalokiteśvara is one figure, Mahākāla is another, Vajra Ḍākinīs another—we distinguish which deity it is by bodily form, or we think chanting a mantra indicates which bodhisattva has arrived. It says we may not do this; actually this is not the meaning of the Diamond Sūtra. If a dog runs in or a cockroach crawls in, that is neither a bodhisattva nor a human being. If you have truly awakened and seen the nature, you will not take the dog’s or cockroach’s appearance as the fact of coming and going. Then what? Do we rely on the nature of the Tathāgata? “The Tathāgata’s nature has neither coming nor going.” How do you know it has neither? Because the books say so. We must inquire: why is it said thus? The Śūraṅgama Sūtra also says: nothing truly comes or goes. Fine—what truly exists? Movement or stillness arises due to conditions.

What is this “existence” in fact? Practically speaking, when we say a person or a dog has come in, we see an appearance arriving and leaving. Speaking thus is expedient speech. In daily talk we may say, “So-and-so has gone out; so-and-so has come in”—that is permissible. But in ultimate truth, in its true scope, there is no coming or going. This does not mean erasing appearances, nor that one who has attained becomes blind, saying, “Though he clearly comes in, I cannot see.” That would make you a blind person from over-cultivation. It is not like this! One who has attained sees him come and sees him go—dogs, cats, birds, even fish in the pond—all fine—there is coming and going. It is not that high attainment annihilates appearances. The true meaning of appearances coming and going is like appearances in a dream: there is coming and going in the dream, but when awakened the dream’s comings and goings are gone—provided one truly awakens. Before awakening, one does not know; in a dream there truly seems to be coming and going. This is an analogy. Śākyamuni Buddha also knew that people do not dream in the daytime, yet the daytime realm shares the same nature as a dream. We have difficulty fully accepting this. Obviously it is daytime; I have not slept. You want me to regard this as dreamlike—I cannot. Dreaming is one thing at night; meeting together in the day is another. To forcibly regard the day as a dream is hard to accept, is it not? Yet using the dream analogy helps to clarify: the comings and goings we see now are like dream appearances. It is easier to understand this way, though still not easy to actually take daytime as dreamlike, because the two seem utterly different. Thus when we read sutras or hear Dharma explanations that phenomena are like dreams and illusions, inwardly we may nod yet feel it strange; it is hard to do.

How appearances arise

Let me use modern science for explanation, which meets less resistance. For example, how do I see him? Not by the ear or the nose, but by the eye. How does the eye see him? There must be light and distance. If he is too close—no space between his face and my eye—I cannot see him. There must be distance and light; the light must be on; the eye must be healthy—a blind person cannot see; the brain must be healthy—a person in a vegetative state cannot see, because there is no visual cognition; one who has just died still has intact eyes but there is no picture, no response. (All dharmas arise from causes and conditions, therefore they are without self-nature.)

Ordinarily we say someone has arrived. How do we know? The person’s appearance—his look—passes through the eye with the help of light. The eye is like a camera; the camera does not know what it has captured. Our eye is the same. The appearance falls, inverted, upon the retina; the inverted image lands there. That alone we do not yet know—because the eye, like a camera, merely receives. The image on the retina is transformed into another kind of signal—speaking simply—this message is sent to the brain region specifically for vision. The brain has many cooperating divisions—some for seeing, some for hearing, smelling, tasting, thinking. When someone comes in, an appearance—just like a camera—the eye moves and this stimulus or message is sent along nerves to the visual cortex. It receives the message, like a television receives a broadcast. That area of the brain changes—the neurons change. Note this neuronal change is not “the person’s appearance.” Do not suppose the dog is the dog’s shape, the cat the cat’s shape, the fish the fish’s shape, directly entering the brain. No! The appearance reaches only as far as the retina, and that retinal image is inverted—head down, feet up. Then this message is relayed to the visual cortex, which “uprights” it into a normal orientation. Beyond the retina there is no longer the shape or existence of that appearance.

To simplify: when I see him, what actually happens is this: owing to light, an alteration occurs upon my retinal cells; the retina converts “this message,” not “this image,” into another message and sends it to the visual center, where neuronal changes occur. (When I rap on a table, vibrations through the air change; sound arises.) When I see him, because of various conditions, the neurons responsible for seeing alter; but in the brain there is no “his image.” These are correlated changes: red makes one pattern, white another, green another—different patterns move there.

How can such changes “command” the brain to produce an image? Suppose seeing red moves like this; white like that; green like another; yellow like yet another. How could you possibly transform that into an image appearing before your eyes? Because we ourselves have this capacity—not something we think up. We cannot willfully turn these changes into an image before us. It is not our fabrication. There are such changes here, and naturally an image seems present before our eyes. A flower appears as the image of a flower before us; yet in fact the flower’s image is not manifest “over there.” Without the entire chain of light, retina, and visual pathways to neuronal changes, we would not know an image of a flower “here.” The image does not directly enter the brain. Recognizing this is crucial! It is here, in me—within a brain area for vision—that changes arise because there is a flower before me. It is not that the image enters the brain. From this place—these brain changes—we, with our inherent capacity, convert these changes into an apparent image before us. Got it? The neuronal change is simply: when seeing you it moves thus; seeing him it moves so. Is that “movement” your image? Does that neuronal change equal your image? No. It is merely differing neural change. Red, white, long, short, round—the scale and scope of change differ—and we have the astonishing capacity to let such neural motion appear as dog, cat, fish, blue sky, white clouds before our eyes. Remarkable! It is only neuronal alteration—not an image projected into the brain. These are two utterly different things. We must be clear: do not “seek through form and sound.” All of this is only cellular change within the brain; and the visual neurons are extraordinarily steady in their response.

Pre-existent morality, concentration, and wisdom

The same holds for hearing. Auditory neurons receive frequency patterns: on “ah” they move like this, on “ee” like that. Are they stable? Very! A given “A” tone always makes the same movement. If sometimes it moved this way, other times that way, we would be lost. This is what is meant by “originally pure”: profoundly steady—not that we first cultivate concentration and then it becomes steady. Regardless of moods, when “A” arrives it moves thus; when “B,” thus; when “C,” thus. Our faculties never mislead us. They keep precepts; they abide. Whether drunk or sober, they move as they should. It is not that when drunk, the “A” waveform shifts and we hear something else. If interpretation fails, that is the fault of the discriminating function. The auditory cells themselves do not waver: pleased or displeased, they move exactly according to the sound. They are faithful to their office—equally so. How do we come to hear A and E? There is wisdom here—an innate wisdom, not learned from books, Dharma talks, or empowerments. That our eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind bring in information that allows us to veridically experience “this kind of flower,” “this sort of sound”—if not wisdom, if not miraculous power, what is it? We already have it. Why then speak of seeking morality, concentration, and wisdom? That is a deception. Yet why do we emphasize it? Because we take what is not self to be self; thus we must cultivate morality, concentration, and wisdom. What is not you is troublesome, prone to evil and disorder; it must be trained and tamed. In truth, what we are—the functioning essence of the six faculties in operation—is our very self, our true self. The functioning-essence—six faculties with six kinds of functioning—has different modes but is one functioning, one essence, moving together as one with the great storms and earthquakes of the cosmos—thus there is no “self-appearance.” It is only because we posit an “I” that problems arise.

The meaning of “not relying on appearance” is this: the flower’s image does not rush into the brain for the brain to read and say, “Oh, this is a white flower!” It is not like that. No image runs into the brain. Borrowing light’s configuration—shape, size, spatial relations—the appearance is converted into another message and sent into the brain; the brain receives and changes accordingly. From this change, we have the capacity—we have wisdom—specifically non-discriminating wisdom. Why non-discriminating? Because no thinking is stirred. Therefore this change appears as “white flower.” Why not “Liu Miss”? Because there is no thought stirred. It is by this innate wisdom—this is the great miraculous power spoken of by the Buddha, possessed by everyone. Otherwise how would a change here appear as a white flower, and a different change there as a fish? Did we ever have to think or exert effort? Not at all. It is inborn. So, when you say an image comes and goes, what we actually have are physical relations—light, distance, and so on—inducing neural change here. There is change and then no change. Is there still “the image”? No. There is no image—only neuronal motion. Where is the “appearance”? Nowhere. “Going and coming do not depend on appearances.” We have always already been in this state—not because we perfected morality, recited, kept precepts, and visualized. Dogs and cats are the same; not just humans. Buddhas too: a Buddha’s step and our step are the same. When the Buddha hears “ah,” we hear “ah”; the same tone. The Buddha will not hear it as “ee.” If we hear “ee,” the Buddha—were he present—also hears “ee.” In this capacity there is no difference between ordinary beings and Buddhas: mind, Buddha, and beings are not two—this is said constantly. Yet we insist on cultivating to become some great master, on “awakening”—when in fact we are originally awake; not recognizing it is called delusion. Recognized, where is there delusion or awakening?

The coming and going of appearances are only the brain’s neurons changing. When there is such a change, it “moves thus”; when the appearance is absent, it no longer moves thus. It is only the difference between motion and no motion here. Where is “your appearance” in this? Nowhere. To take the coming and going of your appearance as coming and going—neurons would protest. This is what Buddhism calls inverted delusive thought. Understand this first; then sutras become intelligible. I am not speaking “my theory,” nor is the Buddha speaking “his.” This is simply how things truly move. He pointed it out. The Buddha did not propound an opinion or theory. Whether or not you grasp theories, we function this way. Ear, eye, nose, tongue, body sensations—alike. The hardest is that we fail to distinguish “mind” and “thought.”

A thought arises—the thought “flower.” Only when the mental faculty moves does the thought “flower” arise; it is not seen by the eye but arises in mind. The mental faculty lacks a concrete form like eye or ear by which we can discriminate; it is diffuse. For example, thinking “flower” is like ear hearing A, B, or C: the change for “white flower” is one pattern; the change for “dog” is another. When the ear receives a sound and the auditory cells move, will that alone let you hear? Movement alone is still only movement. We have another capacity—the sixth consciousness—that differentiates. “Ah—A; B; red; white”—it reads the change as distinct sounds and names. The same with the mental faculty: a thought of “white flower” enters; the mental base receives this visit and also changes. At that moment do you already know it is “white flower”? Not yet. Only when discriminating consciousness adds its function do you say, “Ah, I thought of a white flower, of a dog.” Do you understand me? It is not that as soon as the mental base moves you immediately know “dog.” A thought arises, but you do not yet know what thought it is. Without the discriminating function, it is merely a thought’s coming, like the ear receiving a waveform without yet distinguishing dog from cat. These are the same sort of situation.

The “speaking Dharma” of the insentient

Those who cultivate by the mental base are more common among Chan patriarchs. The Buddha saw the morning star—this was the eye faculty. Seeing peach blossoms, too—this is “going and coming do not depend on appearances,” originally not the appearance’s coming and going. A peach blossom falls from the tree; we see it fall (ordinarily this is our realm). But suddenly, that once, in the visual cells’ moving—in the difference between motion and no motion—there is a change of suchness, and “that change itself is knowing.” There is not an additional “knower” apart from it reading the change. This is the final move. Ordinarily we invert things by taking the change to be something for an “I,” with a separate capacity, to read—the visual or auditory change—and then calling that change “delusive thought.” This is wrong. Because the change itself is knowing; hence “knowing without striking against phenomena, illuminating without adopting an object,” therefore “seeking through form and sound leaves the path not yet correct.” If we do not investigate from here—if one seeks the Buddha by form or sound—even if one can recite the Diamond Sūtra fluently, does one understand its true meaning?

Now we borrow scientific knowledge to assist understanding: originally it moves like this, but we do not know and think there is an “I” that sees and hears. So we take coming and going to be appearances, whereas in fact here there is only change. One can even see clearly that the change itself is awareness—there is no additional faculty that looks at the change and reads it, projecting it as an external image. The change itself is knowing; do not fabricate another “knower” to read the change. Calling it this or that is mere expedience. In reality there is no “subject and object.” There is no positing of a “knower” that knows a “known.” Thus the flower—the image of the flower—arises as change here; and the change itself already includes knowing. There is no faculty that must know the brain’s change. This is the “Dharma-speaking” of the insentient: the flower, too, expounds Dharma. Do not take “Buddha-nature” to be a knowing spirit opposed to objects. If you reify the supreme, pure “knowing” of human discrimination as Buddha’s awareness, you are utterly mistaken. Then you will not understand “the insentient speak the Dharma.” What is that? This thing here changes. Without this thing, no change arises. The change is of the four great elements; the brain, composed of the four, has no master; the outer object of four elements has no master either. Inner and outer four are without owner and communicate—non-dual. It is the same one thing moving. “The movement itself” is knowing; there is no “knower” that looks at the movement. (Because there is no subject and object, this is called the insentient speaking Dharma.) Chan Master Zhaozhou said: What is Buddha-nature? A stone by the road; a cypress in the courtyard.

Motion and stillness do not depend on mind

“Motion and stillness do not depend on mind” is the same point. I lift my hand—I know there is motion; I place it down—there is stillness. Every inlet of appearance produces different light changes, so the brain changes correspondingly; receiving differing stimuli, it changes accordingly—this mutual responsiveness is correct. Inside and outside were never divided. We think we see and hear “outside” because we imagine it so; in truth our six faculties do not pass through any “outside.” They move together as one. Someone “scolds me”—what is that? It is only that sound moving here. The auditory cells do not say, “You are scolding me,” and thus move smaller so that it is not heard. Loudness moves larger; softness moves smaller. This is our original state. When you scold and I get angry, that is because we fabricate a fanciful “I.” Hearing something unpleasant, an “I” arises to interfere, and we are thrown into confusion.

The six faculties are originally pure; we then take their purity as “my function,” and further take the sixth consciousness’s discriminations as “myself,” and thus suffer myriad afflictions. Hence Chan patriarchs often say: do not talk Chan, do not talk Dharma, do not speak Buddha. How to practice? Truly recognize your own true look. Where does this look manifest? In our six faculties. The six faculties are the functioning-essence; what power is this functioning? It is the Buddha’s power; everyone has it. So simple—yet we endlessly chant mantras, recite names, seek empowerments and blessings. But is that not all the sixth consciousness’s demand? This fellow—this “I-appearance”—is troublesome; all day it demands. Today it wants this; tomorrow it wants that; this year one thing, next year another. We may think this teacher is no good and look for another, because we habitually listen to that fellow. The sixth consciousness is like Sun Wukong—never satisfied, always chasing novelty, thinking only the new is correct. Yet our six faculties are originally so pure and such; our Buddha-nature is originally evident in the six.

“Motion and stillness do not depend on mind”: taking hearing as example makes it clearer. When there is sound, there is movement; when there is no sound, stillness. Our usual habit is: when there is sound, a “mind” rises up—“I heard a dog, a cat, a bird.” But does such a thought arise inside the ear? No. Without any thought, it veridically produces the corresponding change—non-discriminating discrimination. This is our original mind-ground scenery, the clear, wondrous field made manifest.

Before waking from the dream there are countless anxieties: one must become a Buddha; where is the Western Pure Land—closer to the west or to the east? Ratnasaṃbhava in the south safeguards health; Akṣobhya in the north displays marvels; Amitābha is in the west—do not go astray to the east… All this fretting is thinking—everyone speaking at cross purposes. Now fond, now averse—how then are the eyes and ears to function? If liking made the eyes capture more vividly and dislike made them blur, that would be chaos; but our eyes do not heed such whims. Red is red, white is white, blue is blue; large is large, small is small. What is received is not judged beautiful or ugly. Only after reception does the discriminating consciousness, conditioned by culture and upbringing, add judgments of beauty and ugliness. That is all right; this discriminating function is also an operation of the dharma-body. Knowing this, we can use discrimination without being deceived by it—that deceiver is the “I.” As Zhaozhou said: before awakening I was used by the twenty-four hours; after awakening I use the twenty-four hours.

“Motion and stillness do not depend on mind” does not mean there is a mind that knows the presence or absence of sound. There is no such mind. The outer sound and the movement here are one and the same. Without the condition of the outer sound, here there is no movement; and if there were no “here,” outer sound would be of no use. Thus the movement here and the sound there are one thing. Do not divide inside and outside; such language is only for convenience. In body and mind one easily discovers the non-dual state. This non-dual state is the Buddha’s state; it is the Pure Land. Where else will you seek the Pure Land? Right now we are moving within the Pure Land and do not know it. We clutch what is false and try to polish it to reach the Pure Land—how strange! We stand within the Pure Land and search outside for the Pure Land.

“Motion and stillness do not depend on mind; going and coming do not depend on appearances; seeking through form and sound leaves the path not yet correct”—all because we do not understand and keep seeking Buddha and Pure Land outside. “The path not yet correct” means one is walking deviant Dharma.

Everything is already present—your native scenery

Chan patriarchs do not gauge your learning or practices; they only ask whether you have seen your nature. What is “seeing nature”? Discovering who the true “I” is. It is not that by study, cultivation, or recitation one reaches that realm. Be clear: from beginningless time it is the six faculties that grant us great miraculous function and great use, and yet we do not thank them—we seize the false as the self. That which never was born will not die; yet we take this rank skin-bag as self and seek longevity and mastery over rebirth—madness! Because there is a false self, there is birth and death. When we recognize the great life of the universe itself—does it have birth and death? An earthquake: the condition comes, so there is shaking. Elsewhere, a great quake; on the Pacific, a typhoon—does a typhoon have birth and death? With dependent arising and empty nature: when conditions converge, there is arising; without conditions, it ceases. This very ground is the field of clear, wondrous luminosity. Say it “exists”—you cannot see it. Say it “does not”—appearances arise with conditions. Understand this and you have seen the nature, knowing you are not this stinking skin-bag. Whether deluded or awakened, drawn to tantra or vinaya—all the same: the great functioning moving as functioning-essence.

Chan Master Dizang had a disciple, Master Wenyì, learned and fond of the doctrine “the three realms are only mind; the myriad dharmas only cognition.” One day Dizang pointed to a large stone in the pavilion: “Wenyì, you say all dharmas are cognition; the three realms are only mind. I ask you: is this stone inside your mind or outside?” Wenyì could not answer. If he said “outside,” then “only mind” would fail; if he said it was not inside, “only mind” would be a lie. He replied, “It is inside my mind.” Dizang said, “Placing a big stone in your mind—won’t that be exhausting?” Exhausting indeed.

This question wore at Wenyì for a month and a half. Day after day he brought answers; Dizang knocked them down: “Buddhadharma is not like that. Inside is wrong; outside is wrong; the middle between inside and outside is wrong.” After a month and a half, out of answers and about to leave, Dizang took pity: “Wenyì! In fact, I tell you—everything is already present.” At that instant, Wenyì awakened.

Where are clouds? In the sky. Where is water? In the cup. Everything is already present—do not overthink.

We have not discovered the “birth-place” of “motion and stillness do not depend on mind; going and coming do not depend on appearances,” so each unawakened person’s individual mind and discourse becomes everyone talking past one another. Not having seen nature, we do not understand. Everything is already present!

Have you heard the sound of stone or bamboo? Have you seen a peach blossom fall? Everything is already present—not through thought. Do not imagine that intellectual understanding is awakening.

We do not understand our own fundamental nature; we have not touched our native scenery; we have not struck the wondrous source. It is not scholarship, thought, or emotion that can reach it. Yet we must pay attention: “Seeking through form and sound leaves the path not yet correct” has already pointed out the direction of practice. Apply effort here—this is true effort.

When Master Wenyì truly awakened and taught from the hall, someone asked, “Master, what is the true first meaning of the Buddhadharma? What did the Buddha intend to transmit? What is the supreme meaning?” Wenyì said, “If I were to tell you, it would already be the second meaning.” Once it is spoken, it is the second meaning—not the thing itself. To analyze things with scientific theory may sound impressive, but all of that is words and sound, unrelated to the functioning itself. Spoken, it is the second meaning—no longer it. Durian is delicious—no matter how well we describe it or even watch a video, that is not the durian itself. Unless you taste it personally, it is not durian. Can the first meaning be spoken? However one speaks, it is not it. So too with the Buddhadharma.

Patriarch Sengcan said: “The supreme Way is not difficult; it only dislikes choosing.” We are already on the Way; of course the supreme Way is not difficult. What more Way is there to seek? Do not aspire to become some great accomplished master. “Choosing” is to look outward—to seek outside. What suits me I take; what does not I reject; I make myself the lord. And who is this lord? The false “I.” The manifestation of the supreme Way—the Buddha-nature—already displays as our very body, yet we still seek outside. Thus “the supreme Way is not difficult; only do not love and hate.” The six faculties originally have no love and hate; it is the false “I” that loves and hates. Motion and stillness do not depend on mind.

“The three realms are only mind; the myriad dharmas only cognition.” All beings—sentient and insentient—are included. Hearing “mind,” we sometimes use “mind” in language to point to the whole native scenery; but this “mind” is not the grasping mind. Many misunderstand and think that apart from sights, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, and thoughts there is some other thing, and that this “mind” “transforms” them. How does it “transform”? It is simply by changing here, thus and so. It is not that “it transforms them”; it itself is them—and yet not them. Not that it is “exactly identical,” yet nothing can appear apart from this great mind—the Buddha-mind, not the grasping mind. Apart from the Buddha-mind, nothing can exist. In Buddhist learning we abbreviate this as “neither identical nor separate”: not identical with it, and yet not separable from it. “Is the stone exactly it?” Not exactly. “Apart from it, could there be a stone?” Impossible. This is doctrine—mere theory; in truth it is not “it.” “Neither identical nor separate,” “neither existence nor non-existence”—such formulas are the simplest theoretical pointers to the Buddha’s realized realm. Is the stone exactly it? Not exactly. But apart from it, could there be a stone? Impossible. Therefore this is difficult to show forth. One cannot reach it by theorizing, nor by begging the Buddha to reveal it so we may enter the same realm. Not possible—not even for the Buddha! Hence it is called “wondrous.” Thorough penetration—the penetration to the root—is required: the stone’s root, earth’s root, space’s root, the root of the vast. This original root is what we call the native field of clear, wondrous luminosity.

Clinging to affairs is delusion; tallying with principle is not yet awakening. If we treat all this as doctrine and ask, “How does a stone manifest? Did it ‘originally’ exist?”—the more we paint, the further we stray. Therefore Dizang instructed Wenyì: “Everything is already present.” Do not pile on thoughts and debate. If you make it an object for research—this and that—you are already playing with it in the realm of theory. Hence: “Clinging to affairs is originally delusion.” Clinging to names and status—“I love white flowers; I hate red; remove them”—is clinging to affairs, which is delusion. After hearing Dharma one may say, “All is empty of self-nature; dependent arising; all is the display of Buddha-nature.” Then how exactly does the stone “turn”? Even if you explain so thoroughly that others concede, “tallying with principle is not yet awakening.” The logic is impeccable and you agree, but agreement with logic is not awakening. Beware of this path. Learning is for use—so that one day we see our own nature. If we become used by learning, we might as well become scholars of Buddhism.

The baffling “I.” Sitting meditation, recitation of the Buddha’s name, visualization—various methods—are not in themselves wrong. But if one is unclear at the root, one takes the means for the end. These methods are aids to reaching the summit; climbing gear is not the summit. Nor, having heard of the summit, should we dismiss the gear—that too is mishearing. But in using it, we must know the goal is the summit. Our fundamental nature—Buddha-nature—manifests as us; the stone as well. Yet is the stone Buddha-nature? No. But apart from Buddha-nature could it be? No. You say, “The pavilion’s stone is over there; I am here looking at it.” That is not the realm. Because we do not know our true self, we think the stone is “before me,” “in the courtyard.” In truth the stone and “I” are not two. Why? Because the false “I” is not posited. If we posit an “I,” then we will discuss the stone and “me” separately and try to fit the grand theory of “Buddha-nature’s display” onto it—how does Buddha-nature “turn into” a stone? We keep taking the stone as an external object of observation and spin theories. The Buddha tells us the stone and we are one. Why one? If the false “I” is not posited, then how could “you” still be set up? Saying “you” requires “not me.” Without positing “me,” how can “you” be posited?

When I look at you, it is not that a “Hong Wen-liang here” looks at a “Miss Liu there.” From beginningless time, in not seeing the nature, we have discussed and practiced the Dharma within this framework. You polish the false “I”—how long will that take? However you polish it, it will fall apart. I look at you—not that there is some separate “Hong Wen-liang” here who “looks at you” there. Rather, the very functioning of seeing is called “I look at you.” You are you; I am I; you are there; I am in Taiwan—such talk is possible only once “I” is posited. The Buddha asks you to look well: does the “I” you admit actually exist? Do not talk of practice or doctrine—first look for the one who is practicing, or who objects. If you are opposing Chan—who is that who opposes? What is that which asserts? Have you thought about it? We only oppose—ranting. Who asserts it? “I.” What is this “I”? A haphazard response. This is crucial. Whether approving or disapproving, it is the assumed false “I” making claims. Search it out: when a flower is seen, is it “outside”? Without you, could the flower be known? Without the flower, how could you say “I see a flower”? The seeing—the functioning—can “I” and “flower” be split apart? Seeing is only functioning. “I see a flower” is my own random speech. The Buddhadharma asks you to go directly and experience this. (This is the meaning of “do not seek Dharma outside the mind.”)

“Subject” and “object” move together and cannot be split. To split them is meaningless. Originally there is no subject and object. What is called “root ignorance” in Buddhism is in fact our natural confusion—everyone is muddled here. But subject and object are originally absent; “both vanish” does not mean you annihilate them—it means you discover they were never there. Do not think practice produces a result across a gap. What the Buddha truly entrusted to Mahākāśyapa is precisely this: from the very outset of practice, one is already on the fruit ground; practice and enlightenment are one—not a sequence of first, second, third stages. The Avataṃsaka speaks of ten bhūmis as a skillful beginning, but what the Buddha truly gave to Kāśyapa is “practice and enlightenment are one.” Not that after years or kalpas one attains the Buddha’s fruit. From the start of practice, we are already Buddha. It is said: our original self-nature is Buddha. Therefore the nature cannot be defiled. In beings of hell, in animals, in hungry ghosts—the essence is undefilable. Do not suppose Buddha-nature cannot “enter hell” as beings; all hell-beings are constituted by Buddha-nature. Hence self-nature cannot be stained. Because Buddha-nature has no fixed appearance, old evil karma manifests as the six realms; yet all are displays of Buddha-nature, so the essence is unstainable.

If we are already on the fruit ground, should we not practice? In Japan, Dōgen traveled to China precisely to resolve this: “Since our nature is Buddha-nature and dharma-nature’s display, why should I still practice—why sit, why recite?” Master Rujing said, “Self-nature cannot be defiled; all is dharma-nature. Yet practice is not absent.” There is practice! We may not say there is no practice. “Originally thus,” we sleep, eat, dress—responding to conditions. Here, responding to conditions means following dharma-nature, not the false “I”: loud is loud, soft is soft, dog is dog, cat is cat—responding exactly to conditions. It is not to overlay this with “as I please”—to answer as I wish, to steal as I wish—that is the false “I” following conditions.

Knowing we are the display of dharma-nature, why not dispense with practice? The mistaken approach is to polish the shadow. “I have much karmic guilt, afflictions of view and desire; I must do good, chant mantras, gradually remove guilt, and step by step become a Buddha.” We habitually take the false as self; every day we polish a shadow and clothe it. Bodhidharma said, “Wrong!” The Buddha told us that the shadow is not you; you must discover the originally pure. But discovery is not easy; one must employ many methods until one day awakening happens—that is the result of practice. The true “I” is not slowly produced by sitting and mantra. The true “I” we dare not affirm; failing to affirm ourselves is the greatest sorrow.

When you sense something is amiss, you must practice—this is harder than polishing the shadow. Do not think, “Since it is originally so, there is nothing to practice”—this is a grave mistake. The false “I,” while quiet sitting and mantra calm the mood, may enjoy peace; favorable conditions gather and the shadow seems to change. But as conditions arise and cease, the shadow changes likewise. Add virtuous deeds, reduce anger and greed, and bodily and mental conditions improve step by step.

Yet the Chan patriarchs do not fuss with petty, timid views—whether slow or hasty. Petty view means cramped vision: when led by the shadow, the view is small. The true “I” is the vast life of the cosmos. How could the true “I” “know itself as ‘I’”? The essence cannot behold itself; the essence cannot cognize the essence. This is what is meant by “penetrate the wondrous root.” We cannot use dualistic knowing to grasp the great cosmos as an object; that would place ourselves outside it. The essence cannot see the essence; it must be realized thus—then one sits. As conditions are added, samādhi states change.

After awakening, Wenyì said: “You speak of the first meaning—‘the ten thousand dharmas return to the One.’ What is the One? Where does the One return? If you can cognize it, is that the One or not? To know the One, you would have to stand outside the One—but then it is already two.” Therefore do not use language, thought, or theory to interpret this. For the One to know itself as One requires wondrous penetration. Turning the body around here is endlessly difficult. Realizing emptiness—you are emptiness itself, dharma-nature itself. How can dharma-nature “know itself as dharma-nature”? Not by cognition—hence the turning-around is hard—hard even across an eon of emptiness. Master Touzi charged his student: “You must accomplish this for me. Do not travel at night; at daybreak you must arrive!” Do not walk by night—arrive at dawn. This speaks of practice and enlightenment as one: from the start of practice we are already on the fruit ground. The six faculties are originally liberated and at ease. In daily life we should constantly learn to appreciate our human life.