Many Western Zennists have the bad habit of believing that old Zen poems and sayings were composed by Chinese simpletons who were only trying to say, “Be in the here and the now.” This is not so. Anyone who thinks this way should take a long look in their bathroom mirror. They could be looking at a real simpleton.
When Zen master Ch’ing-yüan Wei-shin composed this he was of a transcendent Mind—not a simple mind.
“Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and waters as waters. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and waters are not waters. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it’s just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and waters once again as waters.”
The first part is a reflection of how difficult the path really is. To be sure, this is no journey for simpletons or modern day Zen center Zennies. When Ch’ing-yüan says that he saw the mountains as mountains, and waters as waters, he was really describing the naive mind. Such a mind is firmly locked into naive realism, the view that sense perception gives us the complete truth about external phenomena. Things or immediate phenomena, in a word, are not illusory. But then the human eye can only see seven colors, roughly an octave, while the ear has a very limited range of hearing. The naive realist is not only deluded by the senses, but he lives under the delusion that only what senses perceive is true.
Somehow Ch’ing-yüan managed to supersede this view. He probably understood that the perception of mountains and waters arises according to the way the human body is constructed. The perception of mountains and waters begins on the tissue of the human senses, tissue which is extremely limited as to what it can receive. Then the sensory data gets worked up into a suitable humanized image. Mountains and waters are mere constructed appearances, in other words. By comparison, a housefly would be unable to see humanized mountains and waters. This is because a creature like the lowly housefly is constructed differently than a human. If a housefly were poetic, it might compose a poem about mountains of beautiful shit and mighty rivers of cow urine that it found in a feedlot one day.
Long after Ch’ing-yüan began his study of Buddhism, he eventually came to a profound awakening. He saw the Bodhi Mind. As compared with this Mind, he realized that the mountains and waters are empty like a mirage or a dream. Mountains are not mountains; waters are not waters. The only reality is Mind. Although he knew this to be true, he was still hampered by the old habit of naive realism which he constantly had to overcome by negation so as to arrive, once again, at pure Mind.
Eventually, Ch’ing-yüan overcame the old habits of naive realism by long practice and many samadhis which increased pure Mind’s power over illusory appearances. Now, only the brilliance of Mind stood out for him. Just as they are, mountains and waters are configurations of this luminous Mind stuff as is the sun and the sky, ordinary words, emotions and thoughts. Where in this mountain is there mountain-ness or where in the waters is there water-ness? All is Mind-only.
After this, I imagine some believed Zen master Ch’ing-yüan acted like a crazy man. But was he? Heck no! In a world of the willfully blind who also believe they are poor, Ch’ing-yüan was like a blindman who learned to open his eyes; who saw nothing but countless different shapes of gold.
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