Self-nature is not words or language, how can it be expressed in words or language
Instructor：Bennie Spirit
Author: Wang Huaigu January 6th, 2025
In Buddhism, self-nature usually refers to the nature of the self, the original appearance of all things and objects, and a real existence that transcends language, words, and conceptual thinking. Language and words are tools used by humans to express thoughts and communicate, and are also important tools and means for sentient beings to understand and realize self-nature. This article attempts to use three passages from the Shurangama Sutra to discuss: Although self-nature is not language and words, it can be expressed in language and words, and through one’s own body and mind, sentient beings can understand that self-nature and original nature are constant and immortal.
Keywords: self-nature, real existence, language and words
Contents
Chapter 2 Definition of Self-nature 8
Chapter 1 Preface
“Know that all dharmas are one’s own mind, and be attached to nothing.” This is the Buddha’s teaching in the Avatamsaka Sutra, and is the sign of a bodhisattva entering the ground.
In Buddhism, self-mind refers to self-nature. So what exactly is self-nature? Usually, the self-nature refers to the original appearance of all things. It is a real existence that transcends language, words, and conceptual thinking. As the saying goes, “It is where the mind is extinguished, words and teachings cease.”
Language and words are tools that humans use to express their thoughts and communicate , and self-nature is invisible, intangible, and ineffable. No language or words can fully describe its true appearance, but language and words are important tools and means for us to understand and realize self-nature.
In particular, the three passages in the Shurangama Sutra: stretching and bending fingers, observing the river and arguing about vision, and Rahula striking the bell fully demonstrate to us that although the self-nature is not related to language and words, it is not language and words. But it can be expressed in language words so that readers can understand that the self-nature exists forever and is not non-existent.
Volume 2 of the Shurangama Sutra says: “You are still listening to the Dharma with a conditioned mind. This Dharma is also conditioned and does not attain the Dharma nature. Just as when a person points his finger at the moon, the other person should look at the moon because of the finger. If a person takes the finger as the body of the moon, not only will he lose the moon, but he will also lose his finger. Why? Because he takes the finger as the bright moon. Not only will he lose his finger, but he will also not know the difference between light and darkness. Why? The moon’s brightness is its nature, and the two natures of brightness and darkness are incomprehensible.
Here, the readers are also informed that although self-nature is not language or words, as long as they follow the meaning and direction expressed by language and words, they can also realize the real existence of the self-nature “moon”.
Therefore, this article attempts to start from the Shurangama Sutra and explain in detail that although the self-nature is not language and words, we can use language and even body movements to make people feel the existence of everyone’s self-nature and original nature.
This article is divided into four parts: Chapter 1, Introduction; Chapter 2, Definition of Self-nature; Chapter 3, Self-nature is not related to language and words, but can be expressed in language and words; Chapter 4, Conclusion.
Chapter 2 Definition of Self-nature
Zen masters often mention knowing one’s mind and seeing one’s nature, which means that all living beings should understand that their own wonderful and bright true mind is their own seeing nature. However, since time immemorial, sentient beings have mistaken delusion for reality, lost themselves in the pursuit of material things, and have no idea what this seeing nature and self-nature are.
The Great Dictionary of Buddhism says: “Self-nature refers to the original nature of oneself.” That is, each dharma has a true, unchanging, pure and unmixed individuality, which is called self-nature.
“Neither birth nor death” is the self-nature. In the Preface to the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, the Fifth Patriarch said to Shenxiu: “To attain the supreme Bodhi, one must immediately recognize one’s own original mind and see one’s own original nature, which is neither born nor destroyed.” Here, “neither born nor destroyed” refers to self-nature.
The Sixth Patriarch’s Platform Sutra, Preface, says: “How could I have known that my nature is originally pure, how could I have known that my nature is originally neither born nor destroyed, how could I have known that my nature is originally complete, how could I have known that my nature is originally unshakable, how could I have known that my nature can generate all Dharma. “
The self-nature is originally complete, pure, immortal, unshakable, and can give rise to all things. Saints who understand it can achieve Buddhahood, while ordinary people who are ignorant of it will cycle through life and death. As the Huayan Heart Essentials says: “When one is confused, one follows the Dharma. Dharmas vary and people are different; when one is enlightened, the Dharma follows the person. Everyone is the same and all Dharmas are integrated.”
Language and words, as a symbol system, have certain limitations in their expression. For example, they are abstract and referential rather than physical and direct. However, the Buddha and all enlightened wise men can skillfully use language, words, and even body movements to allow the audience to immediately feel and realize the existence of their self-nature and original nature.
When it comes to the self-nature, the most common sayings are: “See the nature of the mind” “The mind is extinguished, and the words and teachings are cut off.” “The green bamboos are all Dharmakaya, and the yellow flowers are all Prajna.”
If this is the case, why did the Buddha say that in the Surangama Sutra repeatedly demonstrates through language, words, and even body movements, allowing people to personally feel the existence of their own nature. Why did the ancient Zen masters leave behind so many miraculous cases about “awakening to one’s own self-nature”?
In fact, there is a trick hidden here. Although it is said that the Self-nature is not language or words, and is not related to language or words, the Buddha, Bodhisattvas, and all enlightened wise men can use language and words, or even body movements, to allow the audience to feel and realize the existence of this self-nature and original nature from their own body and mind..
In the Shurangama Sutra, the Buddha demonstrated three times how to use language and words to experience one’s own nature: observing the river and discerning vision, stretching and flexing fingers (shaking his head left and right), and Rahula ringing the bell. These examples all illustrate that, although self-nature is not language or words, it can be expressed through language, words, or even body movements, allowing people to feel the existence of their own self-nature or original nature.
In fact, in life, we can use language, words, and body movements to realize the existence of our own nature from our six senses. So how should we use language and words to experience and realize the existence of our own nature through our six senses?
1. Realizing the existence of self-nature through the eyes
1 Viewing the River and Discerning the seeing-nature
Although self-nature is not language or words, we can experience the existence of self-nature through language and words and through the eyes.
Volume 2 of the Shurangama Sutra says: “Then King Prasenajit rose and said to the Buddha,”In the past, when I had not yet received the teachings of the Buddha, I met Katyayana and Vairatiputra, both of whom said that this body ends at death, and that this is Nirvana.』
Now, although I have met the Buddha, I still wonder about that. How can I go about realizing the mind at the level of no production and no extinction? Now all in this Great Assembly who still have afflictions also wish to be instructed on this subject.”
The Buddha said to the great king,”Let’s talk about your body as it is right now. Now I ask you, will your physical body be like vajra, indestructible and living forever? Or will it go bad?”
“Bhagavan, this body of mine will keep changing until it eventually perishes.” The Buddha said, “Great king, you have not yet perished. How do you know you will perish?” “Bhagavan, although my impermanent, changing, and decaying body has not yet become extinct, I observe it now, as every passing thought fades away. Each new one fails to remain, but is gradually extinguished like fire turning wood to ashes. This ceaseless extinguishing convinces me that this body will eventually completely perish.”
The Buddha said, “So it is. Great king, at your present age you are already old and declining. How does your appearance and complexion compare to when you were a youth?” “Bhagavan, in the past when I was young my skin was moist and shining. When I reached the prime of life , my blood and breath were full. But now in my declining years, as I race into old age, my form is withered and wizened and my spirit is dull. My hair is white and my face is wrinkled and not much time remains for me. How could one possibly compare me now with the way I was when in my prime?”
The Buddha said, “Great king, your appearance should not decline so suddenly.” The king said, “Bhagavan, the change has been a hidden transformation of which I honestly have not been aware. I have come to this gradually through the passing of winters and summers. How did it happen? In my twenties, I was still young, but my features had aged since the time I was ten. My thirties were a further decline from my twenties, and now at sixty-two I look back at my fifties as hale and hearty . Bhagavan, I now contemplate these hidden transformations. Although the changes wrought by this process of dying are evident through the decades, I might consider them further in finer detail: these changes do not occur just in periods of twelve years; there are actually changes year by year. Not only are there annual changes, there are also monthly transformations. Nor does it stop at monthly transformations; there are also differences day by day. Examining them closely, I find that kshana by kshana, thought after thought, they never stop. And so I know my body will keep changing until it has perished.”
The Buddha told the Great King, “By watching the ceaseless changes of these transformations, you awaken and know of your perishing, but do you also know that at the time of perishing there is something in your body which does not become extinct?”
King Prasenajit put his palms together and said to the Buddha, “I really do not know.” The Buddha said, “I will now show you the nature which is neither produced and nor extinguished. Great King, how old were you when you saw the waters of the Ganges?”
The King said, “When I was three years old my compassionate mother led me to visit the goddess Jiva. We passed a river, and at the time I knew it was the waters of the Ganges.”
The Buddha said, “Great King, you have said that when you were twenty you had deteriorated from when you were ten. Day by day, month by month, year by year until you reached sixty, in thought after thought there has been change. Yet when you saw the Ganges River at the age of three, how was it different from when you were thirteen?” The King said, “It was no different from when I was three, and even now when I am sixty-two it is still no different.”
The Buddha said, “Now you are mournful that your hair is white and your face wrinkled. In the same way that your face is definitely more wrinkled then it was in your youth, has the seeing with which you look at the Ganges aged, so that it is old now but was young when you looked at the river as a child in the past?” The King said, “No, Bhagavan.”
The Buddha said, “Great King, your face is wrinkled, but the essential nature of your seeing will never wrinkle. What wrinkles is subject to change. What does not wrinkle does not change. What changes will perish, but what does not change is fundamentally free of production and extinction. How could it be subject to your birth and death? Furthermore, why bring up what Maskari Goshaliputra and the others say: that after the death of this body there is total annihilation?”
The king heard these words, believed them, and realized that when the life of this body is finished, there will be rebirth. He and the entire great assembly were greatly delighted at having obtained what they never had before.
From this we can see that King Prasenajit, through the Buddha’s enlightenment, understood that the vision he had when he saw the Ganges at the age of three was no different from the vision he had when he saw the Ganges at the age of thirteen or sixty-two. He also understood Although his face is wrinkled, his seeing essence has never been wrinkled and exists at all times.
If we use the example of observing the river to extrapolate to our lives, the people or things we saw when we were young are constantly changing as we grow older, and we can see all of this. The nature of seeing will not change with age or the passage of time, and it exists at all times.
2. Flex your fingers and shake your head left and right
It has been discussed above that self-nature is not language or words. We can experience the existence of self-nature through the eyes. Let’s look at another example.
Then in the midst of the great assembly the Tathagata bent his five webbed fingers. After bending them, he opened them again. After he opened them, he bent them again, and he asked Ananda, “What do you see now?”
Ananda said, “I see the Tathagata’s hand opening and closing in the midst of the assembly, revealing his hundred-jeweled wheeled palms.” The Buddha said to Ananda, “You see my hand open and close in the assembly. Is it my hand that opens and closes, or is it your seeing that opens and closes?” Ananda said, “Bhagavan’s jeweled hand opened and closed in the assembly. I saw the Tathagata’s hand itself open and close, while my seeing-nature neither opened nor closed.” The Buddha said, “What moved and what was still?” And since my seeing-nature is beyond even stillness, how could it not be at rest?” The Buddha said, “So it is.”
Then from his wheeled palm the Tathagata sent a gem-like ray of light flying to Ananda’s right. Ananda immediately turned his head and glanced to the right. The Buddha then sent another ray of light to Ananda’s left. Ananda again turned his head and glanced to the left. The Buddha said to Ananda, “Why did your head move just now?” Ananda said, “I saw the Tathagata emit a wonderful gem-like light which flashed by my left and right, and so I looked left and right. My head moved by itself. Ananda, when you glanced at the Buddha’s light and moved your head left and right, was it your head that moved or your seeing that moved? Bhagavan, my head moved of itself. Since my seeing-nature is beyond even cessation, how could it move?”
The Buddha said, “So it is. Normally beings would say that the defiling dust moves and that the transitory guest does not remain. You have observed that it was Ananda’s head moved; yet his seeing did not move. You also have observed my hand open and close; yet your seeing did not stretch or bend. Why do you continue to rely on your physical bodies which move and on the external environment which also moves? From the beginning to the end, this causes your every thought to be subject to production and extinction. You have lost your true nature and conduct yourselves in upside-down ways. Having lost your true nature and mind, you take objects to be yourself, and so you cling to revolving on the wheel of rebirth.”
As it is said in Volume 1 of “Three-time Recitation of the Buddha”: Birth is caused by conditions, but the Dharma nature is not born with conditions; extinction is caused by conditions, but the Dharma nature is not extinguished with conditions. Therefore, it is said: The Dharma nature is pure and clear.
From the above we can see that although Ananda’s head shook automatically, his vision remained unmoved; the Buddha’s hands opened and closed automatically, but Ananda’s vision did not expand or contract, nor did it open or close. In other words, although the nature of seeing and the self-nature are not expressed in words or language, the Buddha demonstrates the phenomenon of shaking and changing so that Ananda, the public, and we can feel the existence of the unchanging nature of seeing and the self-nature within ourselves.
In fact, in our daily lives, as long as we use our hearts to realize, every action of sentient beings is in the process of birth, death and change, and the seeing nature and self-nature that see these actions have never changed and exist at all times. Great masters often said that sitting is Zen, walking is Zen, walking, standing, sitting and lying down are all Zen.
2. Realizing the Existence of Self-Nature through the Ear
Rahula strikes the bell
We have already learned before that we can experience the existence of our self-nature through the eyes, but we can also experience the existence of our self-nature through the ears.
Volume 4 of the Shurangama Sutra: “Then the Tathagata instructed Rahula to strike the bell once, and he asked Ananda, “Did you hear that?” Ananda and the members of the great assembly all said, “We heard it.” The bell ceased to sound, and the Buddha again asked, “Do you hear it now?” Ananda and the members of the great assembly all said, “We do not hear it.”
Then Rahula struck the bell again. The Buddha again asked, “Do you hear it now?” Ananda and the great assembly again said, “We hear it.” The Buddha asked Ananda, “What do you hear, and what do you not hear?” Ananda and the members of the great assembly all said to the Buddha, “When the bell is rung, we hear it. Once the sound of the bell ceases, so that even its echo fades away, we do not hear it.”
The Tathagata again instructed Rahula to strike the bell, and asked Ananda, “Is there a sound now?” Ananda and the members of the great assembly all said, “There is a sound.” After a short time the sound ceased, and the Buddha again asked, “Is there a sound now?’ Ananda and the great assembly answered, “There is no sound.”After a moment, Rahula again struck the bell, and the Buddha again asked, “Is there a sound now?”
Ananda and the great assembly said together, “There is a sound.” The Buddha asked Ananda, ‘What is meant by ‘sound,’ and what is meant by ‘no sound?” Everyone in the great assembly including Ananda told the Buddha, “When the bell is struck there is a sound. Once the sound ceases and even the echo fades away, there is said to be no sound.”
The Buddha said to Ananda and the great assembly, “Why are you inconsistent in what you say?” The great assembly and Ananda then asked the Buddha, “In what way have we being inconsistent?” The Buddha said, “When I asked if it was your hearing, you said it was your hearing. Then, when I asked you if it was sound, you said it was sound. I cannot ascertain from your answers if it is hearing or if it is sound. How can you not say that is inconsistent? Ananda, when the sound is gone without an echo, you say there is no hearing. If there were really no hearing, the hearing-nature would cease to be. It would be just like dead wood. If then the bell were sounded again, how would you know? What you know to be there or not to be there is the defiling object of sound which seems to come into being and cease to be. But how could the hearing-nature be there or not be there?
And if the hearing really were, as you contend, not there, who would know it was not there? “And so, Ananda, the sounds that you hear are what rise and cease. Your hearing-nature does not come into being and cease to be based on the arising and ceasing of the sounds you hear. You are so upside-down that you mistake sound for hearing. No wonder you are so confused that you take what is eternal to be annihilationism. Ultimately, you cannot say that there is no hearing-nature apart from movement and stillness, from obstruction and penetration and the rest.
“Consider a person who falls into a deep sleep while napping on his bed. While he is asleep, someone in his household starts beating clothes or pounding rice. In his dream, the person hears the sound of beating and pounding and takes it for something else, perhaps for the striking of a drum or the ringing of a bell. In his dream he wonders why the bell sounds like stone or wood. Suddenly he awakens and immediately recognizes the sound of pounding. He tells the members of his household, “I was just having a dream in which I mistook the sound of pounding for the sound of a drum. Ananda, how can this person in the dream-state remember stillness and motion, penetrability and obstruction? Although he is physically asleep,his hearing-nature is not unclear. “Even when your physical existence melts away and your life-force changes and dwindles, how could that nature melt away and be gone from you?”
As the Three-Time Recitation of the Buddha says, “Birth is caused by conditions, but the Dharma nature is not born with conditions; extinction is caused by conditions, but the Dharma nature is not extinguished with conditions. Therefore, it is said: the Dharma nature is pure and clear.”
From this we can see that although the nature of hearing and the nature of self are not words and language, the example of Rahula striking the bell is to use words and language to allow the public to feel the immortality of the hearing nature and self-nature from their own ears in the sound of birth and death. The self-nature exists in every thought and at every moment, it is neither born nor destroyed.
In fact, in our daily lives, as long as we pay attention, we can hear the sounds of various people and things, as well as the silence when no one is talking, the sound of doors opening, the sound of water, the barking of dogs, etc. They all come and go, are illusory and disappear, but the hearing nature and self-nature that can hear these sounds of birth and death will not be born or destroyed with the birth and death of sounds. The self-nature exists eternally.
Chapter 4 Conclusion
To sum up, although self-nature is not language or words, wise men such as Buddha can use language and words to make people feel that this self-nature and original nature exist in every thought, are eternal, and are neither born nor destroyed.
References
- Ancient books (sorted in chronological order by dynasty):
1 Translated by Śikṣānanda (Tang Dynasty): The Avatamsaka Sutra, Volume 18, Taisho Tripitaka, Volume 10.
2 Translated by Amoghavajra (Tang Dynasty): The Sutra of the King of Mercy and the Protection of the Country, Volume 1, in the Taisho Tripitaka, Volume 08.
3 Translated by Paramita (Tang Dynasty): The Shurangama Sutra, Volume 2, Taisho Tripitaka, Volume 19.
4 [Song Dynasty] Daoyuan compiled: “Jingde Chuandeng Lu” Volume 30, “Taisho Tripitaka” Volume 51.
5. Compiled by Yunwen, Song Dynasty: Records of Sayings of the Zen Master Dahui Pujue, vol. 15, Taisho Tripitaka, vol. 47.
6 [Song Dynasty] Yanshou shuo: “Three-Time Recitation of the Buddha’s Ceremony” Volume 1: “New Continued Tripitaka” Book 74.
7 [Yuan] Written by Zongbao: The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, vol. 1, Taisho Tripitaka, vol. 48.
8〔Ming〕Written by Shi Jinglong: “Konggu Collection” Volume 2, “National Library of Good Buddhist Texts” Volume 19.
2. Others
1 Website name: “Dictionary of Buddhism”, URL: https://foxue.bmcx.com/zixing_r37__foxued, retrieval date: January 6, 2025.