48Vimalakirti's Silence摩經不二

Introduction 示眾

妙用無方，有下手不得處；辯才無礙，有開口不得時。龍牙如無手人行拳，夾山教無舌人解語。半路抽身底，是甚麼人？

The wondrous function works any way it likes, yet there's a spot where you can't get your hands on it. Eloquence runs without a snag, yet there's a moment when you can't open your mouth. Longya threw punches like a man with no arms; Jiashan made a man with no tongue talk. But the one who slips away halfway through — who is that?

維摩詰問文殊師利：「何等是菩薩入不二法門？」文殊師利曰：「如我意者，於一切法無言無說，無示無識，離諸問答，是為入不二法門。」於是文殊師利問維摩詰言：「我等各自說已，仁者當說：何等是菩薩入不二法門？」維摩默然。

Vimalakirti asked Manjushri, "How does a bodhisattva enter the gate of non-duality?"

Manjushri said, "The way I see it: in all things, no words, no speech, no pointing, no knowing. Leave every question and answer behind. That is how you enter the gate of non-duality." Then he turned to Vimalakirti. "Each of us has had his say. Now you tell us. How does a bodhisattva enter the gate of non-duality?"

Vimalakirti said nothing.

Verse 頌

曼殊問疾老毘耶，
不二門開看作家。
珉表粹中誰賞鑒？
忘前失後莫咨嗟。
區區投璞兮楚庭臏士，
璨璨報珠兮隋城斷蛇。
休點破，
絕玼瑕，
俗氣渾無却較些。

Manjushri visits the sick old man of Vaisali;
the gate of non-duality swings open, and a master shows his hand.
Rough on the outside, pure within: who can tell the real thing?
Lose the start, drop the end, but don't stand there sighing.
The man of Chu held out his uncut jade and lost his feet for it;
the Marquis of Sui healed a snake and got a pearl that blazed.
Quit picking at it.
Not a flaw, not a crack.
Once the last speck of the ordinary is gone, now you're getting close.

Pointer

Vimalakirti is Buddhism's star layman, an ordinary householder who out-argues the greatest bodhisattvas. Here a crowd of them takes turns defining "non-duality," the recognition that the divisions sliced into the world, self against other, holy against ordinary, are something the mind adds rather than finds. Manjushri, who stands for wisdom itself, gives the cleanest answer: real non-duality is past all words, and of course he needed words to say so. Then he hands the question to Vimalakirti, the supposed master, who answers by going completely silent. That silence is the move: he doesn't describe the thing past words, he performs it, which is why Chan kept it as his "thunderous silence." In a book that prizes the still center over the dramatic reversal, this is the still center itself. The verse stacks old stories of treasure that looks like a plain rock or comes out of a healed snake, worth that needs no display and gets wrecked the instant you try to polish or explain it.