肇論 1.22

1.22

The questioner asks: Things have no means to express themselves, so names are established to express things. Although things are not names, there are indeed nameable things corresponding to these names. Therefore, seeking things through names, things cannot remain hidden. Yet your treatise says 'the sage’s mind is unknowing', and also says 'there is nothing it does not know.' The meaning would seem to be that unknowing has never known, and knowing has never been without knowing. This is what the teaching of names expresses, and the fundamental intention behind establishing words. Yet the treatise wishes to make them one in the sage’s mind, diverging from the textual purport. Seeking the reality through the text, I do not see its appropriateness. Why is this? If knowing obtains in the sage’s mind, unknowing has nothing to express; if unknowing obtains in the sage’s mind, knowing likewise has nothing to express; if both obtain nothing, there is nothing further to discuss!