Baishui Zen

This is our last post on the text of this essay itself. Following this post, I will do one more, where I will try to give something of a “dharma talk” on this essay. I don’t know how long it will be, but I will try to write down my thoughts as freely and organically as I can, and then polish them just a little bit for spelling and grammar and such to present. For today, we will continue following the format we’ve been for analyzing the text. I’ll post the original text, my translation, and then Red Pine’s. Because I’m planning that “dharma talk” style post, I will skip any concluding remarks for this time.

The Text

四稱法行者。性淨之理目之為法。此理眾相斯空。無染無著無此無彼。經曰法無眾生離眾生垢故。法無有我離我垢故。智者若能信解此理。應當稱法而行。法體無慳身命財。行檀捨施心無恡惜。脫解三空不倚不著但為去垢。稱化眾生而不取相。此為自行復能利他。亦能莊嚴菩提之道。檀施既爾餘五亦然。為除妄想修行六度而無所行。是為稱法行。

And now here’s my translation:

Fourth is the practice of the dharma. The principle of pure nature is called dharma. This principle can be summarized as, the many different forms are all empty, without dyes, without desire, without this, without that. The sutras say: the dharma is without any of the multitudes of beings, because it departs from the stains of beings. The dharma has no “I”, because it departs from the stains of “I.” If a wise person can understand and trust in and explain this reason, they should uphold dharma and practice it. The essence of dharma is without stinginess for body, life or wealth. The practice of renunciation grants the mind an absence of clinging and regret. To attain liberation through realizing the three immaterialities, there can be no relying or attaching, only for the sake of removing stains; guiding and changing sentient beings but not taking a form. These actions are both self-cultivation and provide the ability to benefit others. Furthermore, it adorns the path of the bodhisattva. As generosity is such, the other five virtues are likewise, the same applies to them. Doing these things eliminates false thoughts and cultivates the six perfections, but there is no act of practice. This is what is called practicing the dharma.

And now, for Red Pine:

Fourth, practicing the Dharma. The Dharma is the truth that all natures are pure. By this truth, all appearances are empty. Defilement and attachment, subject and object don’t exist. The sutras say, “the Dharma includes no being because it is free from the impurity of being, and the Dharma includes no self because it is free from the impurity of self.” Those wise enough to believe and understand this truth are bound to practice according to the Dharma. And since that which is real contains nothing worth begrudging, they give their body, life and property in charity, without regret, without the vanity of gift, giver or recipient, and without bias or attachment. And to eliminate impurity, they teach others, but without becoming attached to form. Thus, through their own practice, they are able to help others and glorify the Way of Enlightenment. And as with charity, they practice the other virtues. But while practicing the six virtues to eliminate delusion, they practice nothing at all. This is what is meant by practicing the Dharma.

Analysis

I don’t want to be too overtly critical in this post. It’s not in my nature to be too harsh with people’s work, especially someone who arguably knows Chinese and Chan much better than me, so I apologize if what follows is basically just overconfidence and lack of understanding. Frankly, I do not like Red Pine’s translation of this last paragraph very much. The broad strokes seem to be in the right place, but on one hand, I feel that the devil is in the details. On the other, maybe it is OK, because Chan is really about pointing to the subtleties of the mind. Whether or not his version works for that is a personal question, so let’s get into the text and see how the Chinese stacks up, and what we make of it.

The first thing I want to do is confess to my lack of full understanding of some parts of the Chinese out of the gate. I’m not convinced I’ve done a good job with this sentence. I don’t really get the structure. This principle multitude mutual such empty. The hanzi 相 is usually used as a coverb when something happens mutually between two things, e.g. two birds flying away from each other: 鳥相與去, literally, birds mutually depart. The problem is, I don’t really see how that works here. Soothill and Hodous mark it as “forms,” “appearances” and that fits better. 斯 here is an emphatic particle. The sentence is clunky without a grammatical symbol such as a colon, so I’ve inserted some words to try to make it flow better.

Another remark about the Chinese hear pertains to the word “dye” in the translation. “Dye” here is what 染 literally means, but it also means “infection,” and this overlapping usage is not an accident. Dyes permeate their fabrics deeply and completely, like an infection does, and this analogy has a Buddhist interpretation. Soothill and Hodous give, for example, give
雜染 “mixed dyes” and offer the following: the passions; their karma; reincarnation; or illusion, karma, and suffering. These are supposed to be read as groups of three, each of which are things that completely inundate us. We also have, for contrast, 大染法, the great dharma of defilement, referring to sexual offenses on one end, but also 不染著諸法三昧, which refers to the samadhi (三昧) of purity, the first part can be translated as “un ‘dye’d by various things,” which to me seems more appropriate than “infected.” Un-inundated, if you will. I laughed at the very literal “without this, without that.” He almost could have written “yadda yadda” here.

The next point of contrast I want to discuss is what Red Pine translates as “bound” to. This is an interesting point to discuss because it sort of resides on a conceptual boundary. There is “should” in the sense of “expected to,” and there is also “should” in the sense of “ought to.” This same conceptual boundary exists in the word “bound.” There’s “bound” in the sense of “eventually,” e.g. “we’re bound to reach enlightenment once we are stream entrants,” and there’s “bound” as in “to be constrained to.” We are left to wonder what usage Red Pine has in mind, and unfortunately, we won’t get a definitive answer. MDBG gives “should, ought, must,” for the hanzi 應, with more or less just as much ambiguity. For what it’s worth, I read it as with the moral “should.” That is to say, if you are wise enough to understand dharma, you should uphold your conduct, practice Chan, and so on. As they say, it is difficult to be born a human, and even more difficult to live at a time when one can hear dharma. One should take advantage of this opportunity.

The next section in blue is a nice little bit of Mahayana iconography which Red Pine did not unpack for us. 檀捨 is literally “sandalwood discarding,” in Chinese, but it means “alms-giving,” or charity, in Soothill and Hodous. As we’ve been reading the Nirvana sutra alongside our Chan study, as well as in other Mahayana sutras, we often see sandalwood used as something of value. Not only this, but it is often used with incense or other kinds of fragrance as part of different rituals. On another level, 檀, while meaning “sandalwood” is often used for Sanskrit “dana,” because it is pronounced in Chinese as tán, which is a very close approximant of the Sanskrit. “dana” means “giving,” so together, the phrase is “giving and letting go,” which is quite fitting for idea of Buddhist idea of giving. One should compare this with danaparamita, perfected giving, in the Nirvana sutra. I’m translating it as “renunciation” to incorporate this idea of letting go, a single word that hopefully captures and combines all these layers.

In this same sentence, we also encounter another strange character for this phrase, 恡 , it can also mean ‘stinginess,’ but to avoid overloading a given English word for multiple hanzi, I’ve opted for another translation which is available. Unfortunately, this other choice is somewhat clunky in English, but it means “close-fist-ed,” which, I’ve chosen to translate as “clinging” in this text, because to hang on to something in a “close-fist-ed” way is usually in English interpreted in a similar way as to be stingy or miserly. I think the idea is related to clinging insofar as they share a common ideograph of “to grip” or “hang on to.” Still, this one has stuck with me for some time as a way to think about attachment and clinging. It isn’t just desires or wants, although it includes those things. It’s that which you latch onto and squeeze for dear life, white-knuckled in your grip on them, because you can’t let go even a little bit.

On the other hand, Red Pine does unpack for us, the “three immaterialities,” in a way. I’ve seen this referenced in the Nirvana sutra as well, although I do not know about all the possible meanings, because it turns out there is more than one! Soothill and Hodous provide for us three different things that can call themselves “three immaterialities.” The first set of three is (a) 空, (b)無相
, (c)無願, v.三三昧. These mean emptiness itself, formlessness, and finally wishlessness or desirelessness. The second, (a)我空, (b)法空, (c)倶空 the self, things, all phenomena as “empty” or immaterial. The third relates to charity: (a) giver, (b) receiver, (c) gift, all are “empty”. Red Pine has clearly selected the third in context, but I wonder if this really was the intended usage. Especially because Bodhidharma continues, telling us not to attach to anything except for the sake of guiding others, and this attachment should not have any form. It almost sounds to me like it could mean the first interpretation. Perhaps this is because it echoes back to the first part, where he tells us to understand that there is no distinction between self and other, Red Pine reiterates this theme.

On this next bit of Chinese, we encounter a phrase that I find somewhat difficult to get the exact meaning of. Red Pine and I chose complementary interpretations, I suppose. Here was my approach. 莊嚴菩提 is a phrase with two parts. The first two characters 莊嚴 have a range of meanings surrounding the idea of something being majestic, dignified, or adorned. In Buddhism, to adorn something in this way is associated with perfection, but also purification, which also fits contextually with the theme of self-cultivation. The second phrase is somewhat meaningless literally, the first character pu means an aromatic herb, but is also used for a bodhisattva. The last character means to hold or lift in one’s hand. They are paired because one of the alternative pronunciations for pu is simply bo, and one of the many pronunciations of 提 is di. It’s just a loan word. This phrase means “the perfection of bodhi,” and Soothill and Hodous tell me that this can be used as a shortened form for “bodhisattva.” In this case, the follow up of zhi dao 之道 marks that the previous phrase is an adjective phrase for a certain kind of way (dao), so I divide the phrase in two, to get “the perfection of the way of the bodhisattva,” or something similar.

On the ending, I have what I think may be my biggest concern about Red Pine’s translation, but it is not due to any sort of issue with the Chinese. As far as I know, there is nothing wrong with it, as our comparisons are relatively similar. The dispute I want to raise has to do with the nature of practice. I feel that the meanings of “there is no act of practice” and “nothing is practiced at all” are very different. I’ll elaborate on my sentiments in the follow-up post, but to explain briefly here, I wrote “there is no act of practice” not as a stilted English translation, but as an intentional choice on my behalf, because I did not want to add in the word “particular.” In other words, no particular practice is essential. This is quite different from “they practice nothing at all,” which to me suggests that there simply are no Chan practices.

Conclusion

What a nice text to start this blog off with, absolutely steeped in dharma. Even though this essay is basically just a high school five paragraph essay, there’s been so much to unpack across time and space to understand these teachings, and I really think this essay alone could form the foundation of a mature practice. To really wrap things up, I’m going to write one last post that hits the most salient points of these five in one place, and also try to elaborate a bit more on some of them from the point of view of my actual practice. These posts have tried to emphasize the philosophical points, the linguistic points, to relay how we should understand what the text actually means. But there’s a very real sense in which we should be wary of such an exegesis – Chan is not about what we understand, it’s about what we apprehend directly. Therefore, I want to go through this essay one more time, this time with a different eye, the closest thing I can muster up to the true dharma eye, to explain how exactly I use the teachings in this essay in my practice.

I understand posting has been (very, very) slow lately, as life has found ways to disturb my Chinese study, but I’ve had such a good time working on this project, and I’m excited to continue. I always prioritize my life obligations first and foremost, as the people we make vows to need to be our top priorities. After that, I have preferred to focus on my Chan practice over writing. Still, I didn’t forget about these projects either, and as time frees up, I will be resuming writing more.

See you at the “dharma talk” on the Two Entrances!