What is Chan?

This is from the opening passage of the first talk in Liberated in Stillness and Motion by Master Sheng Yen.

The true Chan is without language and words, and that which can be explained with language and words is not Chan. To really speak of Chan I should immediately get off the stage. The Chan that is really experienced by the mind cannot be expressed by words. Once it is written or uttered, Chan becomes rubbish. Yet I must speak. The Chan School uses the analogy of a finger pointing to the moon. To someone who has never seen the moon or cannot recognize it in the vastness of the starry sky, someone else who recognizes the moon can point to it and say, "That is the moon!" Therefore, words and language are only tools for pointing. The real Chan must be experienced. If at this point one mistakes the finger for the moon, where is the moon?

Audience Member: It is everywhere.

MSY (Master Sheng Yen): Deserves a good beating!

Audience Member: The thirteenth floor.

MSY: It's also a mistake to activate a thought or speak a word!

I'm reading through some MSY books and will share passages that seem like a good fit for the sub.

Submitted October 25, 2019 at 08:33AM by CaseyAPayne https://ift.tt/2Wmk5Ud