Fayan's Guidelines for Zen Schools, no. 4

5. On Discrepancy between Principle and Fact, and Failure to Distinguish Defilement and Purity

The schools of the enlightened ones always include both principle and fact. Facts are established on the basis of principle, while principle is revealed by means of facts. Principles and facts complement one another like eyes and feet. If you have facts without principle, you get stuck in the mud and cannot get through; if you have principle without facts, you will be vague and without resort. If you want them to be nondual, it is best that they be completely merged.

Take the example of the manner of the House of Ts’ao-Tung: they have the relative and absolute, light and darkness. The Lin-chi have host and guest, substance and function. Although their provisional teachings are not the same, their bloodlines commune. There is not one that does not include the others; when mobilized, all are mustered. It is also like Contemplation of the Realm of Reality, which discusses both noumenal principle and phenomenal fact, refuting both inherent solidity and voidness.

The nature of the ocean is boundless, yet it is contained in the tip of a hair; the polar mountain is enormous, yet it can be hidden in a seed. Surely it is not the perception of saints that makes it thus; the design of reality is just so. It is not miraculous display of supernatural powers, either, or forced appellations of something false by nature. It is not to be sought from another; it all comes from mind’s creation.

Buddhas and sentient beings are equal, so if you do not realize this truth, there will be idle discussion, causing the defiled and the pure to be indistinct and the true and the false to be undifferentiated. Relative and absolute get stuck in interchange; substance and function are mixed up in spontaneity. This is described in these terms: “If a single thing is not clear, fine dust covers the eyes.” If one cannot eliminate one’s own illness, how can one cure the diseases of others? You should be most careful and thoroughgoing; it is certainly not a trivial matter.

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I don't have much to say about this one. I don't know if it is really a guideline for schools as much as instruction. But Fayan is saying that both principle and facts, merged into one, is what is important. When we discuss, we should adhere to this.

Submitted March 07, 2023 at 07:27PM by Dragonfly-17 https://ift.tt/BDM5GFW