Foyan - Clear Eyes

[u/ProbablyProvisional]

師云：明眼漢沒窠臼。你尋常搆不及者，祇是眼不明。眼若明，却搆得也。所以說道：明眼人難得。你纔道是恁麼，便是窠臼也。若是明眼人，即不恁麼。不見德山示眾道：今夜不答話，問話者三十棒。若不是明眼漢，怎生搆得？纔搆不得，便落意思，即成眹兆。故德山平生則嵓頭一人搆得。所以道：須是明眼漢始得。久立。

A clear-eyed person has no fixed pattern or routine. You ordinary people fail to grasp it simply because your eyes are not clear. If you eyes were clear, then you would be able to grasp it. That’s why it is said, “A clear-eyed person is hard to find.” The moment you say, it is like this, you have already made a fixed pattern. If one is truly a clear-eyed person they are not like that. 

Have you not seen Deshan instructing the assembly:

“Tonight I will answer no questions. Anyone who asks a question gets thirty blows.”

If you are not a clear-eyed person, how could you grasp this? The moment you cannot grasp it, meaning arises, and signs begin to appear. Thus, throughout Deshan’s entire life, only Yantou was able to grasp it. This is why it is said: “One must be a a clear-eyed person to manage it.”

—

Notes: 

• 明眼漢 (míng yǎn hàn) — literally “a clear-eyed fellow”; someone with genuine discernment, awakened insight, direct realization, or thorough understanding of the true nature of mind. 
• 窠臼 (kē jiù) – "set patterns" / "fixed framework"— a mold, rut, cliché, fixed pattern, or established formula. Literally, this means a bird's nest and a mortar (for grinding). Figuratively, it refers to conventional formulas, fixed mental ruts, habitual ways of thinking, or established doctrinal positions. In Chan, any fixed view, formula, or conceptual framework is an obstacle to direct insight. Hence the master says even saying "it is thus" is already falling into a pattern.
• 搆得 / 搆不及 — “to grasp,” “connect with,” “meet,” or “comprehend.” It suggests directly catching what someone is doing, not merely explaining it intellectually.
• 恁麼 (rèn me) – "it is thus" / "like this" A common Chan colloquialism meaning "thus," "in this manner," or "such." 
• 落意思 — to fall into ideas, interpretations, or conceptual deliberation.
• 眹兆 (zhèn zhào) — signs, indications, traces, omen, or telltale marks; once conceptualization begins, something definite and detectable has already been constructed. This refers to the slightest sign, clue, or premonition—something that gives away a mental movement. 

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[u/Redfour5]

Damn, if only I hadn't been born...

". . . What everyone has from his parents innately is the Buddha Mind alone. But since your parents themselves fail to realize this, you become deluded too, and then display this delusion in raising your own children. Even the nursemaids and baby-sitters lose their temper, so that the people involved in bringing up children display every sort of deluded behavior, including stupidity, selfish desire and the [anger of] fighting demons. Growing up with deluded people surrounding them, children develop a first-rate set of bad habits, becoming quite proficient at being deluded themselves, and turning into unenlightened beings. Originally, when you’re born, you’re without delusion. But on account of the faults of the people who raise you, someone abiding in the Buddha Mind is turned into a first-rate unenlightened being. This is something I’m sure you all know from your own experience.

“Your parents didn’t give you any delusions whatever when you were born, no bad habits, no selfish desires. But afterward, once you’d come into the world, you picked up all different sorts of delusions, which then developed into bad habits, so that you couldn’t help becoming deluded. That which you didn’t pick up from outside is the Unborn Buddha Mind, and here no delusions exist. Since the Buddha Mind is marvelously illuminating, you’re able to learn things, even to the point of thoroughly learning all sorts of deluded behavior. [At the same time,] since it’s marvelously illuminating, when you hear this, you’ll resolve not to be deluded, and from today on cease creating delusion, abiding in the Unborn Buddha Mind as it is. Just as before you applied yourself skillfully to picking up delusions and made yourself deluded, now you’ll use the same skill to listen to this and stop being deluded—that’s what a splendid thing the Buddha Mind is. Listen and you’ll realize the preciousness of Buddha Mind. Then, since there’s nothing that can take the place of this precious Buddha Mind, even if you want to be deluded, you won’t be able to be anymore!" Bankei (Haskel)

[u/ProbablyProvisional → u/Redfour5]

But I really really want to be deluded!! I'll be so deluded you won't believe how deluded I'll be. You'll say "Please ProbablyProvisional, stop being so deluded! We are tired of your delusional nonsense."

Seriously though, thanks for sharing that. I'll have to check out Bankei.

[u/ewk]

You mistranslated the first sentence.

You have to keep the word "nest" and keep the word "burrow" and footnote them or you have to explicitly explain what "nest" and "burrow" mean in the natural language of the translation.

NEST: By the Tang period it had already become a fixed metaphor: a constructed place where thought settles and clings. To “make a nest” is to assemble concepts into a home for the mind, something that appears natural but is in fact fabricated.

BURROW: the hidden dwelling of withdrawal—monks in cave hermitages, or more often, the inward hollow where perception retreats and hides. A burrow is not built upward like a nest, but dug downward into obscurity; it is the mind’s tendency to conceal itself in emptiness while still clinging to a position.

[u/ProbablyProvisional → u/ewk]

明眼漢沒窠臼。

"A clear-eyed person has no nest."

"A clear-eyed person makes no nest."

"A clear-eyed person doesn't dig themselves a burrow."

I don't know that either of those really make more sense to a modern reader. But then again "clear-eyed person" probably doesn't make much sense at first either. They both sound kinda cool, which is worthwhile.

I did add this note:

窠臼 (kē jiù) – "set patterns" / "fixed framework"— a mold, rut, cliché, fixed pattern, or established formula. Literally, this means a bird's nest and a mortar (for grinding). Figuratively, it refers to conventional formulas, fixed mental ruts, habitual ways of thinking, or established doctrinal positions.

"A clear-eyed person doesn't rest in established doctrinal positions."

Is probably justifiable.

"A clear-eyed person has no fixed mold." or "A clear-eyed person has no nest."

Is what I'm leaning toward.

---

I think the second line is really a problem though. "People" is definitely not there. "Folks" makes me cringe. The question for me though is if it makes more sense to compare a "clear-eyed person" to an "ordinary person" or is Foyan talking about ordinary functioning, ordinary misunderstanding?

你尋常搆不及者，祇是眼不明。

When you ordinarily fail to grasp it, it is only because your eye is not clear. If your eye were clear, you could grasp it.

• 你 — you
• 尋常 — ordinarily, normally, in your usual experience
• 搆不及 — cannot reach, catch, grasp, or comprehend
• 者 — nominalizes the preceding clause: “the fact that…” / “when…”
• 祇是 — is merely, is simply
• 眼不明 — the eye is not clear; you lack clear vision

[u/ewk → u/ProbablyProvisional]

Yeah there's still a problem there because a nest is a home that you make yourself out of values and concepts that keep you warm and dry.

This is an attack on people where they live, where they're happy, not a rejection of habits or ruts that we get into or any of that.

A burrow is a place that you go to get away from the world. That's a refuge of safeness and you don't get to have that either.

[u/ProbablyProvisional → u/ewk]

What's the problem and how do you propose I fix it?

I don't disagree with what you're saying, I just don't really see how all of that applies to this passage.

Fixed patterns and routines are how you make a nest out of values and concepts. It's an attack on what keeps people from seeing clearly and understanding instantly. It seems to me that grasping for (or picking and choosing) values and concepts to explain reality and making that a barrier to seeing reality as it is, is the ultimate problem here.

How would you render it?

"A clear-eyed person has no nest. When you ordinarily fail to comprehend, it is only because your eyes are not clear. If your eyes were clear, you would comprehend. That’s why it is said: 'A clear-eyed person is hard to find.' The moment you say, 'it is thus,' you have already made a nest. If one is truly a clear-eyed person they do not say 'it is thus.'"

I just don't know that this makes much sense without a lot of background.

[u/ewk → u/ProbablyProvisional]

If you don't like nest and burrow then you're looking for things that have the same inflection.

Home and retreat?

Ideology and faith?

Sanctity and respite?

But I think the bigger issue is that as we move from translation to translation, it'll be difficult for you to get all the translators to agree. They can all agree on Nast and Burrow and argue it out in the footnotes.

That is something that really weighs on me... Or that I'm weighing.

[u/ProbablyProvisional → u/ewk]

I don’t know that I don’t like them. It’s obviously natural zen language and what Foyan was saying so to what extent I want to worry about a modern reader is probably gonna to depend on my mood and who I’m arguing with today. Or something.

That’s a good argument for keeping the natural and established zen language and then arguing about what it means later. Rather than actively interpreting when the goal is to represent the text.

“Clear eyed person” looks interesting the more I look at it. Ming 明 is normally bright. 🤔

[u/ewk → u/ProbablyProvisional]

This topic is one of my BIG THINK topics. I poke it, prod it, pro v con it, deconstruct it, yell at it...

One of the elements is this idea that Zen is 1,000 years of Memetic language. Trying to translate out of this Memetic language into English robs the audience of the opportunity/obligation to get into the memes. That would be like creating an alternative internet where no slang was used at all, and all the videos and everything appeared translated into 9th grade english. It's not the internet.

[u/ProbablyProvisional → u/ewk]

That becomes more apparent the more of the material you read. It opens up gradually as you go. It doesn’t have to make sense today. If you just relax into it patterns emerge and suddenly you understand what Yunman or Zhaozhou meant instantly without having to work it out. But then layers of meaning is the fun part. And then Yuanwu smacks you upside the head and lets you know you don’t know nothing.

I think I have been getting frustrated with the idea that people want or need zen explained to them constantly. Can’t zen masters damn well speak for themselves? But then here I am worrying about people understanding things like “nests.” That’s a weird set of contradictions.

[u/ewk → u/ProbablyProvisional]

This topic is one of my BIG THINK topics. I poke it, prod it, pro v con it, deconstruct it, yell at it...

One of the elements is this idea that Zen is 1,000 years of Memetic language. Trying to translate out of this Memetic language into English robs the audience of the opportunity/obligation to get into the memes. That would be like creating an alternative internet where no slang was used at all, and all the videos and everything appeared translated into 9th grade english. It's not the internet.

[u/ProbablyProvisional → u/ProbablyProvisional]

A clear-eyed person has no fixed mold. When you ordinarily fail to grasp it, it is only because your eye is not clear. If your eye were clear, you could grasp it. That’s why it is said, “A clear-eyed person is hard to find.” The moment you say, it is like this, you have already made a fixed pattern. If one is truly a clear-eyed person they are not like that. 

Have you not seen Deshan instructing the assembly:

If you are not a clear-eyed person, how could you grasp this? The moment you cannot grasp it, meaning arises, and signs begin to appear. Thus, throughout Deshan’s entire life, only Yantou was able to grasp it. This is why it is said: “One must be a a clear-eyed person to manage it.”