On First Impressions of Chan/Zen
To the newcomer getting a genuinely canonical look at Zen/Chan, it should initially look much more like academic skepticism or even nihilism rather than monism or mysticism (that is, if it looks like anything at all; it might instead be totally unfamiliar). While the resemblance to the former two proves to be inadvertent and superficial at best upon further examination, any assumed resemblance to the latter two designations is probably owing to the many modern mischaracterizations and fabrications of Chan.
But why doesn’t Chan fall into any of the above categories? The primary reason is that Chan necessarily eschews all fixed designations and all fixed positions, as well as the fixed notions, concepts, and ideas affirmed by any categorized positions (Huangbo Xiyun said, “if you have the merest intention to indulge in conceptual thinking, behold, your very intention will place you in the clutch of demons”). This is because none of them are truly valid nor worth fixating on, nor is there any sort of thing at all worth grasping in Chan soteriology. This doesn’t lead to nihilism; that’s a fixed position too — but to read eternalism or monism into Chan instead is an equally great error.
Rather, this fluid and delimited strategy of complete non-fixation is what demonstrates Chan’s unique leaving behind of all fixed positions and fixations altogether, and it is even identical to Chan practice and soteriology. Even fixation on non-fixation (and fixation on not non-fixation!) is challenged: Baizhang said, “If one attaches to non-seeking, then that becomes same as seeking; if one attaches to the unconditioned, then it becomes the conditioned again. That is why the sūtra says, ‘Not grasping at dharma, not grasping at no-dharma, and not grasping at not no-dharma.’ It also says, 'The Dharma attained by the Tathāgata is neither real nor false.”
