"The supreme realization is seeing the original nature of mind. It neither affirms nor negates any conceptual point of view; hence it does not need language for expression. One can exhaust the resources of language and still not express ultimate Chan. This is because Chan transcends knowledge, symbols—the entire apparatus of language. You may call Chan “emptiness,” but it is not emptiness in the nihilistic sense, of “there is nothing there.” You may call it “existence,” but it is not existence in the common sense, of “I see it, so it must be there.” It is existence that transcends the fiction of our sense impressions of the world: of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and form. Yet this Chan is never apart from, is all of a piece with, our everyday world. It is indwelling in all beings, everywhere, at all times."
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Sheng Yen (Shengyan) 聖嚴. Getting the Buddha Mind, i-ii. New York: Dharma Drum Publications, 1982.
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Sheng Yen
Sheng Yen (Chinese: 聖嚴 Shèngyán; 22 January 1931 – 3 February 2009) was a Taiwanese Chan Buddhist monk, religious scholar, and writer. Sheng Yen was the founder of the Dharma Drum Mountain, a Buddhist organization based in Taiwan.
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