Why is there nothing that can be said?

Ru Chun: I never quite understood why Master said there is no dharma that can be spoken. Today, after reading the new edition of the Diamond Sutra, I seem to understand a little: 1. The essence of true dharma is nonexistence, but once it is spoken by the speaker, it becomes existence: there is a speaker of dharma, a listener of dharma, and the event of speaking dharma; then, where there is arising there is ceasing, and there is self, marks, and grasping. 2. Master teaches different dharmas according to different conditions, so the dharma taught at such times is subject to change and impermanence, and is not that constant, unchanging true dharma. In this way, the dharma Master speaks becomes a non-dharma, a provisional dharma; that is why Master says there is no dharma that can be spoken—once spoken, it is no longer the true dharma. But why then has Master taught us so many dharmas? Because while sentient beings have not yet been delivered from birth and death, they must rely on the Buddha-dharma, this non-dharma, in order to be saved. Therefore, the Buddha-dharma is both non-dharma and not non-dharma, and out of compassion Master teaches the dharma for us. 

Assessment: Your thinking and logic are not very good and need adjustment and improvement. First, the essence of true dharma is not nonexistence but the mind of emptiness (śūnyatā); it is existence, for it is because of this true dharma that all worldly dharmas exist, including the non-dharma. Nonexistence is the inert emptiness (jaḍa-śūnyatā) of non-Buddhist paths, a negation of the dharma of ultimate reality. When a dharma teacher teaches the dharma of ultimate reality, it is like pointing at the moon with a finger; it is not that nonexistence has been turned into existence. It is the listener who is deluded and attached, believing there is a speaker of dharma, a listener of dharma, and the event of speaking and listening to dharma. Second, the constant, unchanging true dharma cannot be spoken by anyone; it can only be pointed at with a finger, and the dharma is the finger. The dharma I teach is a manifestation of the true dharma and is also empty; that is why I say there is no dharma that can be spoken.

The Buddha said in the Diamond Sutra that the speaker of dharma has no dharma that can be spoken. This is because originally there was no such thing as Buddha-dharma; the Buddha-dharma came into being later, as remedial methods taught by the Buddha in accordance with sentient beings' ignorance. Such remedial methods are dharmas that arose later; they are subject to arising and ceasing, illusory and transformative, not inherent, fixed, unchanging dharmas, and are therefore provisional dharmas. Once these provisional dharmas have been used and realized, they are no longer of use and should be abandoned. If these dharmas still remain in the mind and one clings to them, that is dharma-grasping, which is ignorance—the ignorance of taking the provisional as real. Ignorance is folly. It is like taking medicine to cure an illness: once the illness is cured, the medicine should be discarded; if one insists on continuing to take it, a new illness will arise—clinging to medicine becomes an illness. The dharma spoken by a dharma teacher is similar to medicine for curing illness: originally there was no medicine; when illness arose, medicine was made. 

Then how does the Buddha-dharma come into being? It is manifested through seeds by the tathāgatagarbha of the dharma teacher; its forms and functions are all functions of the seeds, and the seeds belong to the tathāgatagarbha. Thus, in essence, the Buddha-dharma is empty; there is no such appearance as "Buddha-dharma"—it is all an attribute of the tathāgatagarbha, just as all gold vessels share the properties of gold. Such dharma, as well as all Mahāyāna Buddha-dharma, can only be genuinely experienced and observed after realizing the tathāgatagarbha. Before that realization, no matter how the conscious mind imagines it, it is like scratching an itch through a boot—distant water cannot quench immediate thirst.

Before the realization, it is enough that one's understanding of the Buddha-dharma is correct in its general direction; if one examines one's own understanding in detail, there are flaws everywhere. Imaginative thinking and the personal seeing and realization of seeing the path are as different as heaven and earth.