Cleary does the thing we often see: extremely little information on where the text came from, what the textual/manuscript tradition is and its variants, and problems he encountered in his translation. The entire treatment of this subject we do get is in the following half-sentence:
This book contains translations of general lectures on Zen by Foyan. . .
In my school, there are only two kinds of sickness. One is to go looking for a donkey riding on the donkey. The other is to be unwilling to dismount once having mounted the donkey.
I tell you that one need not find a spiritually sharp person to recognize [looking for a donkey while riding a donkey] right away and get rid of the sickness of seeking, so the mad mind stops.
Once you have recognized the donkey, to mount it and be unwilling to dismount it is the sickness that is most difficult to treat. I tell you that you need not mount the donkey; you are the donkey! The whole world is the donkey; how can you mount it? If you mount it, you can be sure the sickness will not leave! If you don't mount it, the whole universe is wide open!
Whatever you are doing, twenty-four hours a day, in all your various activities, there is something that transcends the Buddhas and Zen Masters; but as soon as you want to understand it, it's not there. It's not really there; as soon as you try to gather your attention on it, you have already turned away from it. That is why I say you see but cannot do anything about it.
Two kinds of sickness! As soon as you attempt to extricate you immediately fall into error, what are you going to do about it?
Submitted January 04, 2020 at 09:25AM by ThatKir https://ift.tt/2QldQ1s
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