This week, we look-non-look at Case 88, "The Shurangama's Unseen."
We usually think of ourselves subjectively as people who look out through our eyes, from inside our heads, at objects outside us. We are so on a day to day basis, which is very handy ... because it would be impossible to function if we did not have senses that objectified the rest of the world apart from our sense of self. How would we put on our pants and make toast in the morning if there were no pants or toast apart from some hungry guy late for work?
So, the basic joke in the Koan is that, when subject vs. object drop away, how can there be a seen object or, for that matter, a personal seer who sees such a thing?" ("I see it" usually requires a person who sees a separate object). What if that is replaced with nothing but flowing wholeness and all lack of divisions and separation? It is something like noting that an eye cannot see itself. If the whole universe were the eye, without separation of seer and seen, there would be nothing outside to be seen and no viewer "behind the eye and between the ears" to see it either. Without seer or seen, can we even speak of "seeing"? Without seer and seeing can we even speak of "seen"? Without seeing and seen can we even speak of "seer."
Yes ... what is then? (Reality is not a blind and empty void either!)
In fact, in that case, the person cannot even say that "I" see the "unseen" ... because how is one "unseeing" what is not a thing to start with, and exactly who is capable of unseeing? Thus, to speak of "unseeing" is also wrong.
You cannot even say "I see" the point, or "I see what you mean," because even that turns this into something to see ... or something to unsee. This dropped "beyond subject/object" must be "grocked" somehow ... a word meaning beyond known, seen, tasted, sensed, all of which imply some separation of sentient being and sensed.
It reminds me of the kids' word game that goes, "I see that you see that I see that you see that I see that you see ... "
In this case, maybe, "no see no see no see no see ... "
In Zazen and Zen practice, this self/other divide of subject vs. object drops away into the wholeness of emptiness. Beyond this divide is the true self ... but, again, don't objectify this into an idea or object that is known, seen, tasted, sensed.
And somehow, from this wondrous whatever, there emerges our rich world of subjects and objects, seeing and seen, me and you, all the colors and flavors of the rainbow.
Can you see my point?
The Preface to the Assembly seems to mean that speaking of either "seeing" or "unseeing" or "not seeing" or "not unseeing" are all missing the mark (because not "unseeing" what? In fact, what "not not not not unseeing" what? The "what" or "no what" is the problem!
). In fact, any word would seem to miss the mark, because any word makes an object to think about. Our world appears from this chaos, no more real than illusions of flowers dancing in the sky ... yet what a glorious world! (Master Dogen said that "flowers in the sky" may be like a dream, but it is the dream of life so dream it well.) The Appreciatory Verse speaks of the "great space utterly dried up" in which are mental ideas of divisions, categories, names, me and you, yesterday and tomorrow, ups and downs and all the rest utterly vanish, and yet in this "emptiness" is a fertile wholeness filled up with all the things of the universe.
I think the "Zen monks with long noses" might refer to monks who are too curious and nosey in their search for the "it" which they imagine their "true self" to be, but the "Buddhas with short tongues" wordlessly teach this lesson beyond words. The oneness of the silken thread and the loom that "barely rotates once" point to some amazing creative property to create all the images of things and complex patterns of life's tapestry, but now somehow reduced to the "thread the needle" simplicity before the separate patterns emerge. You encounter thus your "True Self" ... but how can a "you" "meet" a "him"?
Question: What would life be like, and how would we express sentences, if we eliminated subjects and objects and subject/object linking verbs from sentences? Try it.
"I hang my hat" would become ... ... ...
Even just "hanging" fails to hit the mark! Then, even the adjectives and adverbs and all the rest have no place to hang their hats! Nonetheless, the reality in which we somehow find ourselves alive is speaking this wordless language with a clear tongue. Gassho, J
STLah
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