Chapter 29 - A Simple Discussion On Zen

Hsie Ting Hua and Hsu Wen Chen of Taipei had come to see me at my house for the sole purpose of a discussion of Zen. Hsie Ting Hua, under the pseudonym Prince Black Horse, used to write for the Morning Light Magazine during its early days. A gifted writer, he is the author of the book, Remarks of a Traveller. Hsu Wen Chen is a student at the Chinese Medical College and writes in his spare time. He has published the book Crystal Palace, Crystal Palace. They had heard about me and decided to pay me a visit to find out some answers for themselves.

"What is god?" Hsie Ting Hua asked curiously.

"Could you tell me about which god you are asking?" I asked in reply.

"Are there many gods?"

"There is an innumerable, limitless, immeasurable, and unfathomable number of gods," I answered.

"If that's the case, why can't one see them?" Hsu Wen Chen asked.

"People with awareness of their souls see the gods. When people are deluded, they can't see the world of the spirits. Under the sky, very few people are awakened and many are deluded.

Gods are spirits, and spirits are invisible. One can only see spirits through the spirit," I replied.

"What proof do you have?"

"I am the proof."

"One person is not sufficient proof. Give us some other proofs!"

"There is no Dharma outside the mind. If one says there is Dharma outside the mind, then it is not Buddhadharma. What I know is true knowing. One only knows what one knows and

what one does not know. There is nothing in the world other than one's own mind that can prove that one can see the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. There is only one Dharma of the mind:

the mind and I are the same. If I myself am not a sufficient proof for what I know, then there is nothing else in the world that can serve as proof."

For a moment the two of them looked at each other, speechless. Then Hsie Ting Hua continued,

"Could you tell us your opinion on birth and death?"

"There is neither birth nor death. Birth is actually the beginning of death. Although physical death marks the end of life, it is also the beginning of birth into the spiritual realm. Birth in the physical realm means death in the spiritual realm. From the perspective of the Limitless Buddha Eyes, there is no inherent existence of sentient beings in the Universe. If sentient beings do not inherently exist, does birth and death then exist?"

"Is this the Buddhist concept of reincarnation?"

"This is the natural principle, the highest heart teaching to complete Enlightenment, wherein one abandons all concepts of separate existence and returns to Nature's Ultimate Self. There is nothing unusual about a Buddha except that a Buddha has awakened to this truth. An ordinary person who is deluded and grasps onto a separate self will undergo transmigration. To an awakened being who has seen through and transcended the whole phenomenon of transmigration, does transmigration then exist? Ordinary people and the deluded have to cope with transmigration. The so-called deluded beings from the six realms of heavens, humans, asuras, hells, hungry ghosts, and animals are trapped within the cycles of reincarnation."

"Is the realm of heavens the realm of gods?"

"Yes, the realm of heavens is the realm of gods. Gods are pure souls who have accumulated good merits from good karmic actions and are enjoying their rewards in the heavens. However, they have not attained realization yet, and still have to go through transmigration."

"Then do you have to undergo transmigration yourself?"

Hsu Wen Chen suddenly posed this question to me.

"Whether I transmigrate or not depends on me. You would not believe me if I told you, so I had.better not say it."

"Go ahead and tell us. I will believe you."

"It is a discretion entirely up to me. If I feel like it, I will transmigrate. If I don't want to, I will not transmigrate."

They had not expected such a reply from me. It occurred to the two of them that my answer was somehow not an ordinary answer.

Actually the answer itself was not unusual because the words were casual. Yet implicated in these words was something of an extraordinary and inexplicable nature.

"I am very interested in Zen. I wonder if you can give me some Zen teaching?" Hsu Wen Chen announced the goal of his visit.

"Since you are interested in Zen, I shall teach you the One Finger Zen taught by the Zen Master Chuchih. It will give you tremendous help in life."

"What is One Finger Zen?"

"One Finger Zen refers to a state of mind or a revelation of a mysterious secret. With this revelation comes some intuitive perceptions into life. With these intuitions, wouldn't one's life then be filled with boundless treasures?"

"You are right. Please teach me." Hsu Wen Chen was elated.

Hsie Ting Hua then asked me, "Are you saying then that whatever one recognizes as god is god, and whatever one worships as god is also god?"

"You are not too far from the truth."

"In that case, if I maintain that the nipples of women are gods, does that turn women's nipples into gods?"

"Yes, but would you truly believe in it?" I asked him. Hsie Ting Hua did not reply.

I took them over to the shrine to have a look. At the shrine were the statues of the Golden Mother of the Jade Pond, Buddha Shakyamuni, and Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva. At that time quite a few other visitors were there worshiping.

"Why are they kneeling and bowing to the puppets?" Hsie Ting Hua asked.

Without answering him directly, I asked instead, "Do you find this shrine majestic?"

"Yes, it is majestic," both of them concurred.

"That's what it is. These people are inspired by this sense of grandeur they find in the shrine. In their minds, the gods are present when they bow to them. It is a state of mind. As you can feel this sense of grandeur, so do all mortal beings. Is this a genuine grandeur? Naturally it is. This is actually what Zen is. Do not belittle this emotional state of being found in men. When one truly understands this, one attains true awareness."

I quoted this dialogue from Record of the Heart Lamp to both of them:

"Ta Hui said, 'A Bodhisattva cannot see Buddha Nature until he sees it with his eyes.'

The visitor inquired, 'How can the eyes see the Buddha Nature?'

Ta Hui replied, 'If the Buddha Nature can only be seen with the mind, one must be sitting inside a dark cave. It is Perfect Realization only when it can be seen with the eyes. Since this Nature is like the Great Void from which everything in the Universe has emerged, they (the Buddha Nature, Great Void, and everything in the Universe) are one inseparable organic whole."'

"Lu Sheng-yen, what do you think is the Buddha Nature?"

Hsie Ting Hua asked.

"It is the spirit."

"What is the spirit?"

"It is the primordial and original Nature that is one and inseparable from all the myriad things in the Universe."

I made a divination reading for Hsie Ting Hua. Future events, of course, could not be confirmed at the time of writing; however, readings of past events were so accurate that he was greatly astonished. It seemed that one's fate could indeed be predetermined. That day, the two of them spent the whole afternoon asking about their fate, and I spent a whole afternoon answering their questions. People are curious about divination, but most of them only have scanty knowledge. Ignorant are the people in the world whose belief, whose paradigm consists only of the physical reality. "Intellectuals" who denounce psychic and spiritual matters as merely superstitions are just as ignorant as those who are unaware of the existence of other realities.

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