Why is there no dharma that can be spoken?

Ru Chun: I never 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. True dharma is essentially nonexistence; once it is spoken by an expounder, it becomes existence: there is an expounder of the dharma, a hearer of the dharma, and the event of expounding the dharma; then where there is arising there is ceasing, and there is self, there are marks, there is grasping. 2. Master teaches different dharmas according to different conditions, and the dharma taught at such times is subject to change and impermanence, so it 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 ferried across birth and death, they must rely on the Buddha-dharma, this non-dharma, in order to be saved. Therefore the Buddha-dharma is a non-dharma and also not a non-dharma, and out of compassion Master expounds 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, because it is only because this true dharma exists that all worldly dharmas exist, including non-dharmas. Nonexistence is the inert emptiness of the heterodox paths, a negation of the dharma of true reality. When an expounder expounds the dharma of true reality, it is using a finger to point at the moon; it is not turning nonexistence into existence. It is the hearer who, deluded and attached, believes there is an expounder of the dharma, a hearer of the dharma, and the event of expounding and hearing the 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.

In the Diamond Sutra the Buddha said that the expounder 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 the Buddha taught in accordance with sentient beings' ignorance. Such remedial methods are dharmas that came into being later; they are subject to arising and ceasing, illusory and transformative, not inherent, fixed, unchanging dharmas, and therefore they are provisional dharmas. Once these provisional dharmas have been used and realized through practice, they are no longer of use and should be discarded. If these dharmas still remain in the mind and one clings to them, that is dharma-grasping, that 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 an expounder 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 conjured forth through seeds by the tathāgatagarbha of the expounder. Its forms and functions are all the 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, and all the 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, like distant water that cannot quench present 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. Imagining and deliberating are as different as heaven and earth from the personal seeing and realization of seeing the path.