Supposing These Questions Were Asked

A TRANSLATION OF THE SHE WEN YU LU

By Ch'eng Hsi (Cheng Yen) of Hopei, China
Translated by Bhiksu Heng Kuan
Reviewed by Professor Hsing Tsun Lee

Hypothetical question:

Mr. Ch'eng, how is it that you have undertaken the superfluous task of writing another book?

Answer:

I certainly don't have anything that absolutely must be said. Compare it to a child who makes a snowman in the street. Since it's only snow, how could it be a person? After the sun has been up for a while and melted the snow, how could it possibly stand up again?

Question:

Mr. Ch'eng, you've written books in several fields on a variety of topics. Ultimately in which are you an expert, and in which are you an amateur?

Answer:

I don't discriminate between fields, nor do I discuss expertise and amateurism.

Question:

Mr. Ch'eng, how is it that you dash in from the east and speed off to the west, arriving in a rush and leaving on the run?

Answer:

I don't have the strength to recklessly rush around. Only on one occasion I arrived suddenly from Europe, on another occasion I rushed in from Asia, and on another from America, and yet I haven't budged an inch.

Question:

Mr. Ch'eng, eighteen years ago you wrote a book called Ch'eng's New Dialogues on Ch'an. Now you've written another: supposing These Questions Are Asked. Does it contain any new explanations?

Answer:

Although the language of the text is not the same, if the views explained are different, I don't know it.

Question:

This is the modem world; why not flow with the tide, learn how to scramble and compete for position, and avoid being weeded out as superfluous, ridiculed, and abused?

Answer:

Slander and ridicule there has been, but they are of no concern, and I have never changed a fraction of an inch because of them. I only hope that the gang of people who follow the tide of ambitious competition don't destroy themselves with fatigue.

Question:

If a person has the resolve to become better, but lives in an environment where everything that is seen is defiled and afflicted, what should be done?

Answer:

People wearing clean new clothes for the most part don't want to sit in the mud, but if you don't care whether or not your clothes are clean and new, then you can be comfortable.

Question:

What if a person sees everything as empty?

Answer:

Then there is no question to ask!

Question:

In practicing Ch'an, how should I begin?

Answer: Ch'an is without extremes; how could there be a beginning?

Question: Does practicing Ch'an relieve one's afflictions or not?

Answer: If one calls himself an afflicted person, this person probably has unfeigned afflictions. His afflictions being real, then he can actually and thoroughly recognize them. As he is able to recognize them, then he can recognize what kinds of things afflictions are. If a person can truly recognize what kinds of things afflictions are, then he himself is not actually an afflicted person.

Question:

When a person feels empty and lonely, what can be done?

Answer:

Emptiness is neither something insubstantial and false nor is the contrary the case. Loneliness is one's own feeling of emotion, and has nothing to do with emptiness. If emptiness and people were both extinguished, who would be lonely?

Question:

Can Ch'an adepts regard the Ch'an mind as the best state of mind or not?

Answer:

The moment there is attachment to concepts of what is best and worst, that's already not the Ch'an mind!

Question:

Is it correct or is it a mistake for Ch'an adepts to paint paintings?

Answer:

You need not be concerned with whether or not Ch'an adepts paint; why is there discrimination between Ch'an and painting since there is nothing outside the mind?

Question:

What if it were said that Ch'an is absolute peace and quietude?

Answer:

Don't show such obstinate partiality for language and words. In actuality there is no thing, which can be in repose, and no thing, which can be quiet.

Question:

How does one fathom the depths of the Ch'an mind?

Answer:

Since mind is no mind, it is only because of external states that we feel there is a mind. Yet external states are all illusory. If you are able to be non dual, states won't even arise.

Question:

How do you explain non-duality?

Answer:

Even one is not thought of to say nothing of duality.