事事无碍 non-obstruction between phenomena
THE WHOLE ONE
When master Du Shun was asked “Are everything exist?”, he
answered “No, everything are empty, do not have their original
nature, because everything arise depending on conditions”. Asked
“So everything should be empty and not exist?”, answered “Also no,
because everything have been existing ever since beginningless
time”. Asked, “In this case, everything are exist and also empty?”,
answered “No, [the exist] and [the empty] already become ONE, there
is no dualistic appearance, just like gold and gold product are the
same originally”. Asked, “So everything must be [not exist] and
[not empty]?”, answered, “No, not like that, we can say that
everything is exist and also empty, because of that, everything can
exist simultaneously without interfering with one another”. Asked,
“Everything that arise depending on conditions must be empty
eventually?”, answered “Also no, because The Exist and The empty
are mixed together, and all lose their own appearance, therefore
everything do not exist anymore”.
The point for the above conversation is that master Du Shun always
change his standpoint for answering the questions. We can say that
master Du Shun does not have any standpoint, or he does not persist
in his own opinions, or his answers are from the standpoint of the
WHOLE ONE.
IF we think deeper for those all “NO” answers, the real intention
of master Du Shun was trying to help [the questioner] to get rid of
persisting in all kinds of passions. Because the “NO” is the sign
for all negatives, the “NO” is also close to the “Empty’ too.
There was an old monk sitting in the room, doing nothing with one
of his students standing behind him. Two of his students, student A
and B were arguing about something outside the room, after a while,
student A rushed into the room, giving the description of the
argument to the old monk, and asking “Master, am I right?”, the old
monk answering “You are right”, student A rushing to student B who
is outside the room, few minutes later, student B also rushing to
the room and giving his opinion about the argument to the old monk,
and asking the same question “Master, am I right?”, the old monk
answering “You are right”, student B so happy and leaving the room,
in this moment the student behind the old monk asking the old monk
with whispering voice “Master, if A is right, B must be wrong, if B
is right, A must be wrong, how come they are all [right]?”, the old
monk answering “You are right too”.
Because the old monk is already the WHOLE ONE, he can accept all
kinds of opinions - he can also give negative answers to his
students like “You are wrong”.
~Hank Fu