(© HKU Press, 1965)As long as one is employing concepts, as long as our mind is split, every such concept is subject to the Double Negative (Shen Hui, A.D. 686-760) or the Theory of Double Truth (Chi Tsang, A.D. 549-623), that is to say that noumenally it neither is nor is not, but the moment whole-mind is invoked there is no longer a question of dual counterparts, of a perpetual regression; for instance 'total phenomenal absence is total noumenal presence' (total disappearance of being is total appearance of non-being) no longer need imply some 'thing' beyond dual concepts.
It no longer need imply noumenally that neither either is or is not, but states that both, thus, absolutely are. Phenomena are Noumenon, Noumenon is phenomena, being becomes empty and emptiness becomes being - as the early sages expressed it - so that what is dual is not dual, and what is not dual is dual.
Expressed otherwise, once the statement is understood split-mind is no longer objectivising by means of dual concepts: the process of objectivising is transcended, functioning has returned to the source and whole-mind is functioning directly.
Total noumenal presence and total phenomenal absence are ONE as they stand: never can they be two, there is no beyond; whatever a logician may maintain semantically, this statement is final and states the absolute in so far as that can be stated.
Semantically there appear to remain five concepts - 'noumenal and phenomenal', 'presence and absence' and 'one'. That is so - as long as there is an entity, or supposed entity, objectifying these concepts, i.e., occupied in conceiving objects. As such they are not - 'it is the mind, not the flag or the wind, that causes the apparent movement'. (Hui Neng) But there is no such entity, the supposed entity has vanished: impersonal 'mind' - whole-mind which objectively is not - the source, which is not objectively, which, therefore, is neither 'noumenal nor phenomenal', 'present or absent', nor 'one' (which also is an objective concept), which is pure and total non-objectivity, alone is in question.
Philosophically this is indicated by saying that all that we are is the absence of our phenomenal absence, i.e., the absence of an I-entity, an 'ens', to conceive our phenomenal absence.
Note: The moment the subsistent notion of any entity is abolished, whole-mind alone remains, the pseudo-centre which unceasingly objectivises is automatically abandoned, and mind may be said to reintegrate its source.
Phenomena may be said to be Noumenon objectifying itself, or Noumenon may be regarded as Subject objectifying itself as phenomena, neither phenomena nor Noumenon having any objective existence.
