The Infinite Mirror: Commentaries on Two Chan Classics

by Sheng Yen, 聖嚴法師

Here is the inimitable Master Sheng Yen at his best, illuminating the ancient texts of the Chinese Zen tradition to show how wonderfully practical they really are, even for us today.  The texts, written by two of the founders of the Ts’ao-tung sect of Chan Buddhism, are poems entitled Inquiry into Matching Halves and Song of the Precious Mirror Samadhi.  Both emphasize the Chan view that wisdom is not separate from vexation, and both speak of the levels of awareness through which one must pass on the way to realization. Both are also works of Buddhist philosophy that can serve as guides to spiritual practice for anyone.

136 pages, Paperback

First published October 10, 2006

Reviews

[Tobias Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading analyses of poems, are you supposed to feel enlightened? All I feel is more convinced that nearly all poetry and art is entirely empty of substance, except what gets bludgeoned into it by the analyser.

Why do we need to act like every piece of art is a work of philosophy in disguise?

Take a piece of art enjoyed by humans. A certain % of these enjoyers will be trying to forcibly inseminate this art with what they think the artist meant.

Look - when are we going to admit that we really have no fucking clue what the artist meant? For any explanation you make, there could be 1000 equally valid ones.

So then "what the artist meant by this" is really just a pseudointellectual way of saying "what I would have meant if I created this".

You don't want your ramblings to be read as just your opinion, so you dress it up as if it's an objective fact, as if it's detail that you extracted from the art with your big brain. You didn't extract it.

The art reminded you of something and you then imposed that something onto the art.

Anyway, ever wondered why we insist on intellectually understanding everything in the first place?

Maybe not everything should be understood..

Can't you just like a poem because you like it?

Can't we just leave it at "it's aesthetic"?

[Ebby Sellers · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, even if I didn’t understand all the abstract concepts I still read it happily. I finished this feeling satisfied, while also curious about new questions that I gained while reading. Very good !

[Jim McGurn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very helpful. Clear explanation of some tricky notions.

[Tom Booker · Rating 4 out of 5]

A concise commentary that definitely sheds light on two classics of Chan.