Master Gangxiao: The Gist of the *Palm Treatise*, Part 4

The Gist of the Palm Treatise, Part 4

Let's move on.

于绳作蛇解 见绳知境无 若了彼分时 知如蛇解谬

The Treatise says: Just as in a place that is not far off but where the light is poor, one only sees something resembling a rope or a snake, and cannot make out their true natures. Deluded, one takes it for a snake. Later, once the difference between them becomes clear, one realizes the perception arose from a false grasping that only deceived the mind — there is nothing real behind it. Then, when one examines the component parts and distinctions within the rope itself, even the rope's own nature cannot be found. Once one sees this, every understanding one had of the rope is like the perception of the snake — nothing but false cognition. And just as the rope was obscured by deluded cognition, so when one investigates down to the finest strands, down to hairsbreadths and smaller, one finds that all appearances are merely dependent designations, with nothing substantial to be found. Therefore, every appearance arising in the mind that grasps the rope or its parts is nothing but false cognition.

This section opens with a verse, then moves into its explanation. In fact, the rest of the treatise follows this same pattern: a verse, then a stretch of prose, alternating back and forth.

Take the first two lines: "Mistaking a rope for a snake, one sees the rope and knows the object has no real existence." What do they mean? Picture this: at dusk, I'm walking along the road. Suddenly, just ahead of me, not far at all, I see a snake. I get a real fright. But then I notice — why isn't the snake moving? Could it be dead? I take a closer look, and I can't help laughing. Where was there ever a snake? It was just a piece of rope.

"Not far" in the treatise means not too distant. At a great distance, you wouldn't mistake a rope for a snake. If I were standing here, for example, and claimed to see a snake several li away, that simply wouldn't happen. This reminds me of something I've read: people say you can see the sea from the summit of Mount Tai. It works as a line of poetry, but it doesn't hold up in real life. The peak of Mount Tai is still several hundred kilometers from the ocean. Can the human eye really reach that far? Here at Mount Jiuhua, some say you can see the Yangtze from the Heavenly Terrace, but that's impossible too. The eye struggles to see even a hundred li with any clarity. Stand on Mount Tai, face east, know the sea lies in that direction, and you can say the sun rises from the sea. Stand on the Heavenly Terrace, face north, know the Yangtze lies in that direction, and you can say you see the Yangtze. These are reasonable acts of imagination, but they are not facts. The distance is simply too great.

"Not clear" means poor visibility. I said dusk, but it doesn't have to be dusk — any dim light will do, or thick fog, or even weak eyesight. I'm nearsighted myself. Take off my glasses, and I can't make out what's in front of me either.

"Place" is the spot where it happens. "Thing" is the matter at hand — here, the matter of mistaking a rope for a snake.

"Distinction" means being unlike each other. What is unlike here? The "inherent nature." In this passage, it means the inherent nature (or self-nature) of the rope differs from the inherent nature of the snake. Put plainly, saying the rope's self-nature differs from the snake's self-nature is just a roundabout way of saying the rope and the snake are two entirely different things. We often hear that all dharmas have no self-nature, but when the text here speaks of the self-nature of the rope and the self-nature of the snake, do note: though the words are the same, what they point to is not.

Honestly, this example has been turned over and over in Buddhist writing — it's almost worn out. But what is it really meant to show? People give different answers. I'd say it's meant to break things apart: I was suddenly deluded by a poorly seen scene and formed a discriminating judgment. Only later, once I noticed, did I see how absurd that judgment had been, how completely deluded. And this is only a metaphor. What's really being said is that everything we presently perceive is deluded and absurd — we simply haven't yet realized that the "snake" is nothing more than a piece of rope.

The last two lines of the verse read, "Once one examines its component parts, one knows the mistake is just like the snake-misperception." Let's look at this again. Dignaga explains it in his prose section, so let's follow his words.

"Furthermore, when one examines the component parts and distinctions of the rope" — "furthermore" just means "next" or "then." "Component parts and distinctions" points to the fact that a rope is woven from strands of hemp, one by one. Those individual strands are the "component parts." Study the rope carefully, pull it apart into its strands, and you'll see each strand is distinct from the rest. That's what "component parts and distinctions" means.

"Cannot be found" — at first you thought you saw a snake; look more closely and it's just a rope. So there's no snake at all — the snake cannot be found. But push the investigation further: the rope is only strands of hemp, so even the rope cannot be found.

"Its parts" refers to what remains once the rope is pulled apart into strands — those individual strands are the parts. "Down to hairsbreadths and smaller" means you analyze the rope into strands, then analyze the strands further, finer and finer, until at last you cannot find even those strands anywhere.

This is really an example of quantitative change giving rise to qualitative change. The "snake" was a product of false grasping — in truth, it was a rope. The rope itself is the unified whole, "one." Pull it apart, and once the quantity changes past a certain point, the rope vanishes and you're left with hemp. Push the analysis further, and another shift occurs — until even the hemp disappears.

But why bother dismantling the rope once you've shown the snake is unreal? (The moment you take the rope apart, after all, it's destroyed.) Here's what I was thinking: I mistook that rope for a snake, and it gave me a fright. Once I saw clearly it was only a rope, I thought — if it frightened me, it might frighten someone else too. So I destroyed it, to keep it from startling others. The Earth Store Sutra says that if I enter a perilous road, Earth Store Bodhisattva will come rescue me and lead me out. After leading me out, he says, "When you meet others, tell them too that this is a perilous road. Don't let them walk it." Destroying that rope was simply my way of following Earth Store Bodhisattva's instruction.

So the first two lines of this verse describe the first level of delusion: there was never any snake — only the rope. The last two lines describe the second level: even the rope has no findable substance. All of this is to say that everything we see, hear, and otherwise perceive is deluded. Let's move on to the second verse.

诸有假设事 详观自性时 从他皆假名 乃至世俗境

Just as when one analyzes the component parts of a rope or anything similar, item by item, and examines them carefully, one finds nothing substantial — only false cognition. So too should one understand that all dharmas are merely nominal designations. Take a bottle or a piece of clothing: they are made from clay, from threads, and so on, up to the level of ordinary speech. So long as the object consciousness engages with hasn't been broken apart, we call it a "bottle" or whatever. The phrase "derived from convention" means it comes from worldly linguistic practice, not from ultimate truth.

The first verse told us that in a place that is not far but poorly seen — and notice, this is really a way of saying we live in ignorance — the snake one sees is deluded. Even the rope that supposedly makes up the snake is just as deluded. Now someone might ask: if it's all delusion from the start, why call it a snake, why call it a rope? The answer is that people needed a convenient handle, so they set up a provisional name. That's all. "Item by item" in the treatise means one thing at a time. You can take this table and analyze it apart, piece by piece. You can take a person and analyze them too. That's what "item by item" means. "Careful examination" means studying and analyzing something thoroughly and honestly. "False cognition" means there is no real, substantive thing there at all — but people need a name for it, so a name is set up. All things are like this.

Dignaga gives two more examples: a bottle and a garment. What is a bottle? A lump of clay shaped into a form that can hold things. People find it convenient to have a name, so they call it "bottle." The name "bottle" is nothing but a provisional label. A garment is the same: in truth, it's just threads. People need a name, so they call it "garment." Is there really such a thing as a garment? Not at all! Bottles, garments, and the rest are all provisional names set up by false cognition out of human convenience. By worldly convention, you absolutely cannot say these things don't exist — to do so would fly in the face of ordinary reality. But by ultimate truth, you absolutely cannot say they do exist — to do so would fly in the face of truth itself.