The Distinction Between Exposition and Realization of Principles

When Patriarch Bodhidharma met Emperor Wu of Liang, why was he unwilling to guide him? After hearing him speak a few sentences, he turned and left immediately. Emperor Wu sent soldiers to pursue him, but he did not look back. He preferred to face the wall alone in a stone cave on Mount Song in Henan for nine years rather than come out to guide others, much less guide Emperor Wu. Who was Emperor Wu? One can look it up online: he built monasteries, ordained monks, supported the Three Jewels, personally lectured on the Diamond Sutra, and even crouched down to let Master Fu Dashi use his back as a step to ascend the lecture hall. Such a figure, with profound merit and virtue and no shallow good roots—why did Patriarch Bodhidharma not guide him? If Emperor Wu lived in this era today, he would have attained enlightenment eighteen or nineteen times already. Such a disposition is rare even in modern society, yet Patriarch Bodhidharma simply did not regard him highly, refusing even to engage him in further conversation. Why exactly? During those nine years of facing the wall, how many people could the Patriarch have guided? Yet he attended to none. Why exactly?

Emperor Wu’s merit and virtue were indeed immense. He provided exceptional support to the Three Jewels, and his good roots were undeniably profound. However, they were ultimately not deep enough to enable him to realize the mind and attain enlightenment, to grasp the essence upon hearing the words. Therefore, Patriarch Bodhidharma had no time to gradually instruct him on the Path of Upward Pursuit. He was not the right vessel for the Zen school; further words would have been useless. The Zen school guides those who seek liberation from birth and death and whose conditions are ripe. Those whose conditions are not ripe cannot be forcibly guided toward enlightenment, as doing so would harm Buddhism and sentient beings.

Patriarchs who have truly attained the Way are most averse to theorists who can speak but not actualize the truth. They seek only disciples who are genuine vessels of the Way, capable of realizing the truth. Thus, seeing no one with ripened conditions, Bodhidharma faced the wall for nine years, waiting for a disciple with mature conditions to arrive. Although Emperor Wu could lecture on the Diamond Sutra for several sessions and serve as a presiding master, he was ultimately only a theorist, unable to realize the truth. To speak the truth without having realized it results in words that are largely empty, devoid of true meaning. No matter what effort Patriarch Bodhidharma directed toward him, it would have been useless, because Emperor Wu was ultimately not a vessel of the Way.

It is like Chan Master Deshan before his enlightenment. He had lectured on the Diamond Sutra countless times and was known as Zhou Jingang (Diamond Zhou). Carrying two shoulder-poles of commentaries on the Blue Dragon (Qinglong), he journeyed south to defeat the heretics. Yet after being guided to enlightenment by Chan Master Longtan, he resolutely burned both loads of his life’s work—the commentaries—in a single fire, murmuring: “Exhausting all abstruse arguments is like placing a single hair in the vast void; draining the world’s pivotal mechanisms is like dropping a single drop into a giant ravine.” This means that all the principles he previously explained and all the debates he engaged in were like a single hair cast into the great void—utterly weightless. Pouring out all his wisdom and ability was like a single drop of water falling into a massive chasm—utterly insignificant. Before true enlightenment, no matter how many books one writes, they are all wastepaper.

What is the difference between explaining principles and realizing principles? Theorists use consciousness; realizers use the root mind (manas). In Patriarch Bodhidharma’s Treatise on the Bloodline of Zen (Xuemai Lun), there is a line: “If one does not see the nature, even if one can expound the teachings of the twelve divisions of the canon, it is all demonic speech. One belongs to the demon’s family, not the Buddha’s disciples. If one cannot distinguish black from white, how can one avoid birth and death?” This means that even if one can lecture on the twelve divisions of Buddhist scriptures, if one has not seen the nature (attained enlightenment), it is equivalent to demonic speech.

The phenomenon of much theory but little realization is very common, especially in this Dharma-ending age. Theorists are everywhere; realizers are almost nowhere to be seen. The world is filled with theorists, which is deeply disheartening. Regarding those theorists, to say they have attained intellectual understanding is already elevating them several levels—yet they are still dissatisfied with the term “intellectual understanding.” Those with intellectual understanding have undergone a genuine process of actual practice, though they have not reached the final level of realization. They lack the ultimate result of direct experience, having only reasoned and imagined it. They possess some meditative concentration, though it is incomplete. They have some wisdom, though it is diluted. They have practiced the Thirty-seven Aids to Enlightenment, though not perfectly. They have cultivated the Six Perfections of a Bodhisattva, though not yet completed them. Why, in modern times, when even the conditions for intellectually understanding the Dharma are absent, do so many supposedly enlightened individuals appear? The answer is left for contemplation.