I, old Tcheng, do not do anything to maintain, modify, or change the course of things by following the desires of the individual mind. Let there be neither distrust nor revolt but only the necessary act. If I behave in a different way with you, it is so that you might, at last, by yourselves, directly see original spirit instead of always seeking it through the mediation of dead fellows or by running after scatterbrains like me.
My own manner, indeed, is to shake you like saplings in the mountain wind. Thus, I break up all your struts and props, leaving you all undone, with nothing more to hold onto to. But since I break up all that you rely upon, filling you with fear, you say, to reassure yourselves, that I sin against the law and convention, and am but a vile blasphemer. So you go on desperately clinging to appearances and accessories instead of letting them depart from you by themselves, without striving to hold on to them.
My words find no echo in you, so I play a trick on you and tell you they come from a great and famous fellow who has been dead for centuries. But you still do not understand that they are your direct and immediate concern. On the contrary, you seize on them as something precious, good for keeping and to cultivate. Baldheads, by holding on to futilities, you simply waste your life away and the evidence of original spirit slips through your fingers. What a shipwreck for you!
*
Nitwits, original spirit does not appear when sleep leaves you and does not disappear when sleep comes to you. Original spirit is nothing and is totally independent of that which changes and dies.
If original spirit were truly your sole occupation, you would see all that alters and dies in the same way that you perceive the movements that dancers give to their streamers, and would resolve to constantly seek that which in you neither varies nor dies and, once you find it, then not one of the thousand worlds could divert you in your thoughts for an instant of a flash or in the slightest degree make you stray from it in your actions.
You believe you aspire to original spirit but you only actually seek the satisfaction of a condition, of learning, and of merit. Because of this, nincompoops, you are entirely under the fascination of all that in you and outside of you is not steadfast and just dies.
That is why the sayings of old Tcheng simply go through you without making an impression, like the birds which leave no trace in the sky.
Bald pates, all that you think and say concerning original spirit is but the erring and wandering of your own puny little minds. To that which nature spontaneously brings you, you respond only after interpreting it through all the words of those that you have put up on a pedestal above yourselves.
Baldies, this being as artificial as the dragons made for festivals, how can you hope to see original spirit in its spontaneity?
In my youth, I went all around the land spending my time in study and practices. I associated with those who had strayed and, imagining they had found the light, did nothing but cause others to stray. Then, I met him who enabled me to see all the useless mud I bore with me. The way of truth appeared to me and original spirit became my sole occupation. And, one day, everything suddenly collapsed into awareness.
I, old Tcheng, do not imitate so and so, or such and such a one. I hold to no belief, no school of thought do I follow, no one's disciple am I. In my true nature I know nothing, I own nothing, I am nothing... for there is no old Tcheng there! In the ordinary way, the things in which I take part, of themselves, just flow by, pass away on their own. Even original spirit is no longer my concern.
The words I speak to you come not from that which is learnt.
*
Shaved skulls, I have hidden nothing from you. What profit is there for you? Nothing but stuff and nonsense!
Exit old man Tcheng.
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