It is difficult to doubt that the verbal confusion in which oriental doctrine is delivered to us was intentional. And the efforts of translators can hardly be said to cut the knots.
Amongst these linguistic muddles perhaps none distresses us more than the notion of 'existence' and 'non-existence'. Yet surely it is in itself relatively simple. Regarded from the point of view of reality - nothing exists. Hui Neng said it - just like that (the T'ang Masters sometimes spoke simply). From the point of view of our dream of living, manifestation, phenomena - everything exists, mirages as well as motor-cars, saints as they are imagined as well as saints as they lived - for all are mind-products like that which we conceive as 'ourselves'. Most of these terms have dual meanings, according to the point of view from which they are being used. If we bear that in mind much of the muddle evaporates at once.
Why did the original Sages cultivate linguistic confusion? Why did Jesus say: 'I speak in parables so that they may not understand'? When we become sages we shall know.
