by Tang Huyen

"What the world shows or manifests is full, compleat, perfect, and needs nothing further to make it any more perfect than it already is. The only obstruction to that self-manifestation of perfection is our mentation."

The Buddhist talk of emptiness means either that
thing-events lack ultimate substance or that the
mind is empty of all norms and standards. But
even as thing-events lack ultimate substance and
the mind is empty of all norms and standards,
all that appears appears in full glory unobstructed
by attachment to ultimate substance and norms
and standards. It is free to shine forth in full
effulgence when unobstructed by attachment to
ultimate substance and norms and standards.

Technically, it is not the case that the whole world
is pointing (to something else); it is the case that
the whole world is showing, manifesting. And what
it shows or manifests is itself, reality, beyond which
there is none. What the world shows or manifests is
full, compleat, perfect, and needs nothing further to
make it any more perfect than it already is. The
only obstruction to that self-manifestation of
perfection is our mentation.

Shiro Matsumoto, "Critiques of Tathāgatagarbha
Thought and Critical Buddhism", Journal of Buddhist
Studies, Faculty of Buddhism, Komazawa University,
No. 33, Oct 2002, here 364–363, mentions two
Tathāgatagarbha theories: "Buddha-nature Immanence
theory" and "Buddha-nature Manifestation theory."
"The former corresponds to Indian Tathāgatagarbha
theory, itself Buddhist version of the 'ātman' theory of
Hinduism, according to which Buddha-nature is
considered to dwell within the bodies of sentient
beings." "The second theory, i.e., 'Buddha-nature
Manifestation theory' is Chinese development of Indian
Tathāgatagarbha thought, according to which
Buddha-nature is already manifested as all phenomenal
existences, including non-sentient beings such as trees
and stones. In other words, phenomenal things, as such,
are regarded as Buddha-nature itself, and are, as it
were, totally absolutized."

He then proceeds to quote from Chinese Chan masters
and Japanese Zen masters.

Hui-chung: "Non-sentient things such as walls and tiles
are all the mind of the old Buddha."

Dōgen: "Everything is Buddha-nature."

The ultimate is what appears (let us remember that to
phainomenon in Greek means what appears). We don't
need to go anywhere else, as it is already fully manifest
in our sensation.

In another article, "Critical Considerations of Zen
Thought", Annual Report of the Zen Institute,
Komazawa University, No. 10, Mar 1999, the same
author presents the same dichotomy and adds a very
telling quotation from Hsuean-sha, a 9th century Chan
master: "If you now affirm the whole of the ten directions
of the dharma-world as the whole body of the one true
Dharma Realm, is there any place where it falls short?
If you are thus completely perfect and clear and
unimpeded, where do views of birth and death and
nirvana come from?"

This means that every speck of reality is an expression
of ultimate reality. There is no remainder, and no
deficiency.

Matsumoto's framing puts the Chinese Chan masters
correctly under "Manifestation theory": they affirm
reality as it appears, as full, compleat, perfect, with
nothing left over and nothing missing. One does not need
to go anywhere, because the ultimate is already fully
manifest in our sensation. "The sound of the valley, the
color of the valley, the sound of the mountain, and the
color of the mountain do not hold back their teaching of
the 84,000 verses (which express truth itself)," says
Dōgen, meaning that what appears (to phainomenon) is
full, compleat, perfect, and needs nothing further to make
it any more perfect than it already is.

It doesn't point to anything else; it merely shows or
manifests itself in its perfection.

When one removes the mentation (the obstruction), the
world immediately manifests itself in full glory —
in the seen there is just the seen, as Bāhiya's Sutta says.
Nothing has changed out there; only one's obstruction
has been removed, and what was always there — the
full, compleat, perfect, unimpeded Dharma Realm —
can manifest itself, in the sense that one can now receive
it as full, compleat, perfect.

The teaching is not that the world becomes perfect when
one awakens. The teaching is that the world is full,
compleat, perfect all along, and was only obstructed by
one's mentation from manifesting itself as such.

When Dōgen says the valleys and mountains express
everything without holding anything back, he means that
what appears is full, compleat, perfect, and needs nothing
further. It doesn't point to anything else; it merely shows
or manifests itself in its perfection.

Colophon

Posted to talk.religion.buddhism on 11 January 2007, in the "Affirming the realities" thread, in reply to Brian Mitchell. Author: Tang Huyen. Message-ID: <[email protected]>.

A pivotal statement in Tang Huyen's Tathagatagarbha reading. The distinction between "showing" and "pointing" is central: the world is not a sign that refers to something beyond itself, but a self-manifestation of the ultimate. Matsumoto's scholarly distinction between Immanence theory (Buddha-nature dwelling within beings) and Manifestation theory (Buddha-nature as the total absolutization of phenomenal appearances) gives conceptual precision to the Chan masters' assertions. The Greek phainomenon is used to decode Dōgen. This post revisits themes from "What Appears" (January 2005) but advances them with the Matsumoto framework and the Hsuean-sha citation on perfection without remainder. Read alongside "The Non-Symbolic Mind" (<[email protected]>) on the structure of non-referential awareness.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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