On the usage of words

Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching #148

Master Dongshan Chu said,

When there is a statement in a saying, this is called the dead word;

when there is no statement in a saying, this is called the living word.

What is the living word? When it comes to this point, it's really hard to find people. If it's a matter of saying 'There's no way to set about answering' immediately upon seeing something, without stirring a single particle, without eliminating a single object, who knows how many there are, east, west, north, or south?

If you want to find anyone beyond the mud and water, with the eye to enliven people, expound the way of Chan and bring out the great matter, I don't say that there are none, but still they are few, simply because of failure to arrive at the source and consequently falling into the delusive objectifications of the storage consciousness.

Perceiving what has no name and no concreteness, no right and no wrong, but is everywhere in everything, they say they have attained a state of peace, and seek no more. If they are ever questioned, they knock on their chairs, hold up their fly whisks, and go on ad lib, acting out immediately, bobbing in a pit of foul water, playing with a tailless monkey, until the last day of their lives, when the drum has been beaten to pieces and the monkey has run off - in frantic confusion, they are helpless.

What can regret do then? If you are real Chan practitioners, you would prefer to freeze or starve to death than to ever put on stinking shirts like that.

Submitted February 28, 2022 at 12:02AM by Owlsdoom https://ift.tt/W79zQlc