Dregs and slobber of the Chinese Patriarchs, Ordinary Language is the Way

The following is from Bankei Zen, edited by Yoshito Hakeda.

"Generally speaking, Zen teachers nowadays instruct people by setting up rules or using devices. Believing that without devices they can't manage, behaving as if without them it's impossible to instruct anyone, they're unable to teach by simply pointing things out directly. To teach people [this way], unable to manage without devices, is 'devices Zen.'

"Others tell students pursuing this teachign that it's no good unless they rouse a great ball of doubt and succeed in breaking through it. 'No matter what,' they tell them, 'you've got to rouse a ball of doubt!' they don't teach, 'Abide in the Unborn Buddha Mind!' [but instead] cause people without any ball of doubt to saddle themselves with one, making them exchange the Buddha Mind for a ball of doubt. A mistaken business, isn't it?"

"In China too you have this sort of thing. As you can see in the records that have been brought to Japan, the true teaching of the Unborn long ago ceased to exist there, so that nowadays, even in China, men of the Unborn are not to be found, and that's why no records that speak of the Unborn Buddha Mind have come to Japan.

"When I was young and trying to uncover the Buddha Mind, I even made a serious effort at taking part in mondo [using Chinese expressions]. But later on, having come to a real understanding of things, I gave it up. Japanese are better off asking about things in a manner that's suitable to Japanese, using their ordinary language. Japanese are poor at Chinese, so in dialogues using Chinese [terms], they can't question [teachers] about things as thoroughly as they might wish. When you put your questions in ordinary Japanese, there's no matter you can't ask about. So instead of taking a roundabout way and knocking yourselves out trying to pose your questions in difficult Chinese words, you're better off freely putting them in easy Japanese, without exhausting yourselves. If there's some situation in which the Dharma won't be completely realized unless you ask your questions using Chinese words, then it's all right to use them. But since, after all, you can manage freely by your asking questions in ordinary Japanese, to ask them using difficult Chinese words is a clumsy way to go about things. So, all of you, grasp this, and whatever matter you take up, just deal with it smoothly by asking your questions without constraint, availing yourselves of the freedom of ordinary language. So long as you can deal with things smoothly, there's nothing so handy as your own familiar, ordinary speech.

Most importantly is this part that follows:

"The reason Japanese monks are teaching laymen inept at Chinese using Chinese words that are hard for them to understand is that they themselves haven't settled the matter of the Unborn Buddha Mind, and evade people's questions by using Chinese words, that are hard for ordinary folk to grasp. On top of which, these [difficult expressions] are nothing but the dregs and slobber of the Chinese patriarchs!

Submitted July 04, 2017 at 12:52AM by Dillon123 http://ift.tt/2szcyFI