Jīng – Classic 經

The word “Classic”¹ is another forced label. It begins with the perception of a sage, seeing the people of the world chasing their emotions, pursuing fantasy, indulging in desires, and occluding the Real. These sages are concerned about how the deluded mind² disturbs the realm of awareness (靈地 líng dì)  and about the flourishing of ignorance, so that that the untainted gift of Heaven is lost and the original basis unable to be restored in case of sudden death or maiming.

Thus they employ the power of expedient means to open the gate of guidance, to meet and lead the deluded masses back to the true path.

And thus too all those books that teach are labelled “Classic.”

“Classic” (經 Jīng) means pathway (徑 jīng), the great pathway that all must pass along. Even though reading a classic, one should not become fixed on the language. But you also cannot leave the classic and look elsewhere: you must pay attention on your own part, take those five thousand words and chew them finely, considering each stroke of each character … then suddenly you have bitten through a sentence, or even half a sentence, and that part of the classic is yours, and you can open your mouth without the words issuing simply from the surface of your tongue.

Here is where you open your own treasury, drag forth your own classic, interpreting it in inspired fashion. And this goes not only for this one classic, it goes for all thirty-six respected classics, one huge storehouse of teachings! Go through it all once from start to finish: all it will take is one big shout before it is all perfectly clear.

Right?

   A sudden gust of wind over even ground,

   A thunderbolt exploding out of a clear sky.

   Listen! Listen!

Ode

The marvellous function of this classic is hard to evaluate

Not changing over ten thousand ages

Every line having its use, every place a safe crossing.

If you have not picked up your own clear discernment

You are not a true child of my house.

Who dares travel within?

Endnotes

1. 經 Jīng, as is frequently noted, originally meant the warp threads on a loom, and like those threads, classics are the stabilising influences that run through a culture and maintain its central principles as the warp thread of each generation pass one by one, constructing the overall design which will be that culture’s legacy. Jing is also the word for Sutra in Buddhist writings.

2. “Deluded mind” is literally (業識) yè shí, a Buddhist technical term, the “activating mind.” See Awakening of Faith. 《起言論》：“一者名為業識，謂無明力不覺心動故.”