..續本文上一頁enal existence, and we cannot find any reason to be attached to some special metaphysical entity or to the phenomenal world.

　　However, in Note 1 of the Introductory Word, I have explained the true meaning of Buddhist negation. Negation after negation, we turn over and renew our perception and pre-conceived ideas: in other words, wiping out mirror-like mind in each moment, we can observe everything as it is.

　　Here everything as-it-is means everything means everything as-it-should-be, because everything as-it-is-in-the-usual-sense always should be negated, one thing after another-even though we are concentrated on one thing. The result of the practice of negating everything-as-it-is-in-the-usual-sense is what we mean by everything-as-it-is. The-way-everything-should-be should be accepted as the-way-everything-is. This acceptance should be the most important point in Nagarjuna”s Middle Way.

　　When we practice zazen in the right way, this acceptance takes place. In the realm of Zen-mind, transmitted from Buddha to Buddha, from patriarch to patriarch, there is no noumena or phenomena, no subjectivity or objectivity, no object to be criticized or subject to be critical. Here we come to the true understanding of the so-called non-attachment or oneness-of-duality. In its true sense the Middle Way, which is beyond the Four Negative Propositions and One Hundred Negations, is not different from the transmitted way of zazen. This is the so-called “Intention of Bodhidharma”s coming to the West” or “Shōbōgenzō Nehan-myoshin.”

　　But En-go presents us-his students-with a problem of whether this monk did understand the true meaning of the One Hundred Negations, when the monk asked his question. If he had had a true understanding of Nagarjuna”s One Hundred Negations and had asked about our traditional way of practice, his questions should have been at the same time an answer to his own problem. So En-go says: If I had been the monk, I would have bowed three times, as soon as Ba-so said something.

　　Taking up again the thread of the subject, the monk who thought he knew what the One Hundred Negations were, did not have a true understanding of them at all. And he asked, “What is Bodhidharma”s zazen

　　” Ba-so who knew that this monk was not prepared to listen to the right Dharma, did not answer the question. He only said, “Today I am very tired so I cannot explain it to you. Go ask Chi-zo.”

　　True expounding of Dharma is not done only by preaching. In everything we do at the monastery we should express the true Dharma. The true study of Buddhism is not studied by mouth and ears. To stay at a monastery without knowing one is always amidst the Dharma is quite useless. To seek for Dharma without knowing one is always exposed in the voiceless voice of Dharma was what the monk was doing. Ba-so and his two disciples Chi-zo and Hyaku-jo wanted him to stay out of this kind of delusive study of Zen. This why Ba-so said, “I don”t feel well. Go get an answer from Chi-zo.”

　　When Chi-zo found the monk coming from Ba-so, in spite of Ba-so”s kind instruction, he must have felt helpless and said: “Today I have a headache and cannot explain it to you. Go ask Hyaku-jo.”

　　So the monk went back to Hyaku-jo who, not liking to expose the true way in useless discussion, said, “No understanding is my understanding in the realm of reality.”

　　The monk then went back to Ba-so, the Great Teacher, and told him the whole story. Ba-so said: Chi-zo the white-headed, and Hyaku-jo the black-headed.

　　I visited the Cambridge Buddhist Association. In Cambridge there is a Cambridge Buddhist Association; in San Francisco there is Zen Center. There is one and yet two, two and yet one, as they should be, as everything is under some particular situation.

　　Bodhidharma”s intention in coming to the West cannot be understood by people who seek Buddhism without knowing Buddhism is everywhere. Salt is white chemical, nearly the same as sugar in appearance. If we do not know which is which, we try a little on some food. We do not take the salt alone, but always with food, as something other than a white chemical, as, maybe, the most important seasoning in our actual life. It is in oceans, rivers, plants, trees, in everything. It is in every food we take. Without salt nothing exists. We say a pickle is salty and that cake is sweet, but in cake there is salt, it makes the cake more sweet.

　　This is why Ba-so said, “Chi-zo the white head-geared, and Hyaku-jo the black head-geared.”

　　Without the spirit transmitted from Bodhidharma, there is no black-hatted Chi-zo or white-hatted Hyaku-jo. Chi-zo should be Chi-zo and Hyaku-jo should be Hyaku-jo.

　　Our traditional way of understanding is not different from being concentrated on the actual fact which we face on each moment.

《Baso’S Four Propositions,One Hundred Negations》全文閱讀結束。