Refraining from Words and Speech

      In Tea Words Volume II, Master Sheng Yen remarks, "Whichever Chan method you use please refrain from relying on words or speech. Words represent ideas, concepts, and images, and only by leaving these things behind can you begin to understand true mind" (p.15). Typically, Chan emphasizes a direct pointing to the mind, rather than clinging to concepts, ideas or images. Why is this so? Part of the problem is that clinging to anything quickly becomes a source of suffering and vexation. I have observed in myself that whenever I like a particular idea I have, that same idea will lose its flavor over time, because the conditions have changed. Have you ever had situations in your life where you come up with a "brilliant" idea at 11 in the evening, only to find that it doesn't hold much appeal at 6 in the morning, when you wake up? I am sure that many psychologists have different explanations for this phenomenon (such as the "right brain" adding a different element during sleep or dreaming), but one reason is that thoughts are conditioned. What seems a good idea in some circumstance or condition is likely to change with new sets of information or even bodily conditions. It's sometimes troubling to recognize how delusive thoughts can be when they make us believe that we have "got it!" only to yield to a questioning of what exactly we "got" in the first place. This is perhaps one of the reasons why Master Sheng Yen remarks that whatever we think or say is always going to be "off the mark" (ibid). Thoughts and expressions only speak to the current conditions of mind, and they can never capture the essence of mind.
   While Chan practice is not said to rely on words or concepts, there is certainly a lot of explanation in Chan Buddhist philosophy. Why so? Master Sheng Yen poignantly reflects, "But the point of what we talk or write about is to convey that whatever you think or say is erroneous." (ibid) That is, I think the point of attending Dharma talks is not to get caught up in words or explanations but, rather, to recognize that such explanations always fall short of the proverbial mark. They never can point to the true mind.
  Sometimes getting too involved in thinking can have a similar effect of having us spinning in our own thoughts. I find it's helpful to remind myself that thoughts can never be solutions to life's problems in themselves, and that sometimes the only way we can approach a situation is to be with it, no matter how unpredictable it is. When I try to "think ahead" to predict how a situation will unfold, I am often subconsciously trying to exert control over whatever it is that happens to be arising. What would it be like to be vulnerable to the way life itself is simply not subject to easy labeling or categorization? How would I feel to recognize that there is no way to even know what kinds of situations we will encounter in the course of life? It's helpful to make a space for anxiety and vulnerability, because this is where the rawness and tenderness of sentience meets the present moment and its conditions. It's not always helpful to come into anything with any presumption of knowing.

Sheng Yen (2013) Tea Words Volume II. Elmhurst: Dharma Drum Publications