The Tao of Flow

Friday night, I attended a talk at the HKSHP by Dr.Chan Pui Yin (陳沛然) . It was an excellent talk. I learned a great deal. The talk was entitled "平常心是道" (The Tao is Casualness or The Natural flow is Tao). Although it was almost the end of a hectic week and I was a bit tired, I didn't fall asleep at all as I did at some of the other talks at the HKSHP. 

Dr. Chan approached the topic from the macro-angle of the different emphases of Indian philosophy, American philosophy and Chinese Buddhist philosophy. To him, Indian philosophers were the most careful and subtle thinkers. They have a tradition of making the finest distinctions in thought and thus tended to be idealist. They were the very opposite of American philosophers which were more concerned with the results and effects of various ideas. The American philosophic bent could in a sense be described as pragmatist.  Chinese thinkers on the other hand could be seen as occupying a middle position: neither too theoretical, not too pragmatic. To him, the best Buddhist philosophy is that of the Tin Toi Sect (天台宗) which emphasized what he termed complete merging or harmony of three truths (三諦圓融論) and the Middle Way, same as Nagajuni (龍樹菩薩)  who says that the truth is that it is the case that there is existence/reality and it is also that case that there is no existence and no reality and in addition, it is also the case that there is neither existence nor non-existence. In other words, any distinction is wrong. To him, the Indians were too idealistic, the Americans too pragmatic but Chinese had the best of both worlds. I just wonder whether it is possible to make such generalizations. I thought the age of generalizations and universal truths was gone forever. It certainly seems that old habits die hard. Simplifications will always have a market. Anyway, it is always good to know where one stands.

Dr. Chan said he would like to introduce the idea of the "natural/casual/ordinary/usual" mentality (平常心) through the Zen method. He started by giving us a zen poem: by Master Doorless (無門禪師): "Spring has hundreds of flowers and autumn has warmth, Summer has coolness and winter has snow. If there's nothing in one's mind, then it must be a good time for man." " 春有百花秋有暖，夏有涼風冬有雪，若無閒事掛心頭，便是人間好時節"  ( Spring has a hundred flowers and autumn has warmth. Summer has cool winds and winter has snow. If there is no trifles upon my mind, Then it is a good season.) The master is called "Doorless" because if there is a door, then it may imply that there is only one way. If there is no door, then every place or point can be a door. Zen masters teach by suggestions and by concrete examples and not by building philosophical systems.  To the Chinese mind, there is no heaven, no hell and thought should not be dualistic at all.

He cites the Heart Sutra (心經):  色即是空, 空即是空, 色受想行識，五蘊皆空. Everything is an illusion in the sense that that nothing is permanent: everything is subject to perpetual changes and is the result of a number of prior causes coming together due to their inherent natures but there is also an element of chance. Thus , a good idea must also meet with the right kind of environment before it can demonstrate or reveal its own goodness. All our senses, our thoughts, our will, our conduct and our knowledge can be sources that prevent us from attaining the ultimate truth. To Tin Toi Sect,(天台宗) , the most essential truths are 因緣所生法，我說即是空，亦為是假名，亦是中道矣. ( the law of co-dependent origination and the concept of "I" does not have any reality. In a sense, even the doctrine of co-dependent origination are false ( 緣起性空). It is false in that it is not true but it is also not untrue. We must follow the middle way. Everything has a certain reality but is is never ever completely what it seems. This truth is embodied by another Zen poem by Endless Nun (無盡尼) 進入立春不見春，芒鞋踏遍隴頭雲，歸來偶拈梅花嗅，春在枝頭巳十分 ( Entering upon Spring Equinox, spring is not seen Reed shoes stepping all over the clouds of Szechuan. Smelling upon return a plum flower by accident Spring already is completely at the tip of the branch. ). In other words, Spring is already there, just that he was  looking for it at the wrong places. If you are too intent on finding soemething general, you will not find it because you are too focused on some particular. We can never really find anything useful if we make too much distinctions. In the final analysis, all distinctions are merely mental distinctions, a creation of the human mind. They have no real existence out there in the world which is one, indivisible and each of whose elements just occur according to the inherent laws of their own nature and which only come together for short periods, partly impelled by the logic of their own nature and partly through the operation of pure chance or accidents and the context in which it happens to be at a particular point or period of time and place and each following the cycle of birth, development, decline and death, destruction and disintegration. Nothing has any lasting characteristic or structures and in that sense permanent or" real". Everything remains mere transient phenomena. That is their "true" nature. Hence a wise man will just follow the events in accordance with the natural logic of their own development and not try to force anything. This however does not mean that we must all be completely passive. We must still act according to the internal necessity or logic of our own personality, education, experience etc. but always with the overriding awareness or mindfulness that nothing is permanent or can only be done one way. If so, then whatever happens as a result of our efforts, we shall be equally happy and will not be angry, disappointed, frustrated, anxious, fearful, overly excited. We just take everything in our stride and maintain that calmness of mind, that clarity of vision and that natural joy which has always been with us from the beginning had we not done all sorts of things to disturb or interfere with it or cloud it with our own subjective desires. 

The theory of the Tien Toi Sect was further developed by the Hua Yim Sect (華嚴宗) whose principal concepts are 圓融無盡，六相圓融，主伴圓融. or endless and seamless merging, mutual seamless merging of the 6 phenomena and principal and contextual merging. The 六相 ( 6 phenomena) are 總相 (total phenomena) and 別相 (individual phenomena), 同相( similarity) and 異相 ( difference) 成相 (complete) and 壞相 (defective).. Another idea is 理事無礙, 事事無礙 (phenomena relies upon the mutual constraints of the rationality of different parts, the merging of one into another, both competing and complementary). All of such ideas are based upon the original principle of 緣起性空. This sect thinks 隨緣不變 不變隨緣, the former referring to the what should happen in the ideal world and the latter referring to what may happen in the the material world. When they say 理事無礙, 事事無礙, what they mean is that the true cause of things will never change but because the true cause of change never changes, it can adapt itself to particular circumstances and if we follow reason, we may arrive at non-contradiction so that when we actually do things, we will not experience contradiction.

To achieve perfection, we do not need to do anything special. All we need to do is to follow the logic of the circumstances because if we do so, then we shall be acting in accordance with the normal nature of things. If we keep this (平常心) always in mind as a plain truth, we should have little difficulties in achieving perfection!