I. What This Concept Is Saying

The four characters "無是無非" — if read only at the literal level, they can easily be mistaken for a lighthearted "stop arguing about right and wrong" — and then they would mean nothing at all. But they come from the Zen lineage record *Jingde Chuandeng Lu* (The Jingde Record of the Transmission of the Lamp), where a Chan master uses them as hard words to reveal how mind, views, and reality actually operate. To truly understand these four characters, one must enter layer by layer.

First Layer: "Right" and "Wrong" Are Originally Constructed (施設, prajñapti)

"Construction" (施設, *prajñapti*, "designation" or "imposition") is a crucial term in Buddhism: language, concepts, and judgments are labels we impose after the fact; they are not how things actually are in themselves. "Right" — this matter is correct, this person is good, this judgment holds — if it can hold at all, it is because someone has established a standard and then measures things against it. "Wrong" is likewise the shadow of "right"; without "right" there is no "wrong." These are not properties inherent in things; they are constructed.

The *Jingde Chuandeng Lu* says at the very beginning:

「心同虛空界，示等虛空法，證得虛空時，無是無非法。」

Note that the complete sentence is "無是無非法" — one character "法" more than the commonly seen "無是無非." This extra "法" (dharma) is crucial — it does not merely say "there is no right and no wrong"; it says that even this "dharma" of "no right and no wrong" itself cannot be grasped as a real state. In empty space there is no place for opposites to anchor, but empty space is not some other kind of thing either.

Second Layer: Not Empty Talk — It Must Be Said "At the Very Scene" (當境)

Another passage in the *Jingde Chuandeng Lu* says:

「聖人說知見，當境無是非。我今悟真性，無道亦無理。」

The two characters "當境" ("at the very scene," "in the immediate situation") are the key to understanding the whole sentence. This is not a Chan master sitting in his study writing a philosophical treatise arguing that "right and wrong are originally nonexistent"; rather, it is at the very moment when something is happening, the hard edges of right and wrong loosen of their own accord. This is not an epistemological negative judgment — it is not telling you "your judgment is wrong, right and wrong are false" — but rather describing a state: when there is no longer any gap between mind and the object it faces, the entire apparatus of right and wrong has no place to gain traction.

Then immediately: "無道亦無理" — after awakening, even the character "道" (the Way) cannot stand, even the character "理" (principle) cannot stand. This suddenly opens up the scope: what is removed is not just "right and wrong," but even oppositions like "the Way and principle" — which look very sacred and very lofty — equally cannot stand.

Third Layer: Consecutive Removal, Not Just Removing One Pair

The *Jingde Chuandeng Lu* has another passage that lays things out densely:

「無是非無動靜，無善惡無去來。莫謾將身入空井，亦無明鏡掛高臺。山僧見解只如此。」

Here, four pairs are removed in one breath: right/wrong, movement/stillness, good/evil, coming/going. What it conveys is not a "list of negations" but a mode of expression — the Chan tradition habitually uses consecutive removal to peel away paired concepts layer by layer, so that the listener directly touches that which cannot be captured by any pair.

But the two lines that follow — 「莫謾將身入空井」 ("do not carelessly throw your body into an empty well") and 「亦無明鏡掛高臺」 ("nor hang a bright mirror on a high platform") — are the most flavorful part of this entire passage. The master immediately warns: do not think that "non-discrimination is empty stillness" — as if there were a hollow, empty state out there for you to climb into. "Empty well" and "high platform" are both images of emptiness and stillness; the master's meaning is: do not congeal "no right and wrong" into another image, another "lofty state." This is the most formidable aspect of Chan: on the one hand it speaks of no-right-and-no-wrong, and on the other hand it dismantles the very statement "no right and no wrong" itself.

The final line — 「山僧見解只如此」 ("this mountain monk's view is only thus") — is not modesty either; it is an honest statement: these words above are merely the personal view of this mountain-dwelling renunciant; they are not establishing a new principle for you to take refuge in. Even "a principle" is not established.

Fourth Layer: Even the Names "Mind" and "Dharma" Cannot Rest

There is another passage that does not directly use the four characters "無是無非" but employs the same technique:

「非法亦非心，無心亦無法，是法非心法。」

When it says "mind" — it is not a fixed mind. When it says "dharma" — it is not a fixed dharma. When it says "mind-dharma" — it is not that "mind-dharma" either. The moment a name is set up, it is pointed out as not being itself. This is the same gesture as "no right and no wrong": any constructed pair, category, or self-boundary cannot be grasped as real.

Summary: What This Concept Is Actually Saying

「無是無非」 is not a viewpoint (holding that right and wrong do not exist), nor an attitude (telling you to make no judgments), nor a worldview (holding that there is no right or wrong in the world). It describes a state when mind and its object meet: when the mind's discriminating function has not congealed into fixed opposition, the hard edges of right and wrong naturally do not hold. But this state itself also cannot be objectified into a "thing" for you to pursue or abide in.

II. A Walkthrough in Daily Life

To bring "無是無非" down from the lineage record and walk it through the daily life of contemporary people, one cannot merely give an example of "grazing on news without taking sides" — that would narrow the whole concept into "Buddhist-style neutrality." Let us walk through it step by step according to the four-layer structure given in the canon.

Scene One: Stepped On During the Commute — The Beginning of "Right" and "Wrong" as Construction

In the morning, hurrying to the subway, someone steps on your foot. In the instant that foot comes down, a rapid sequence of judgments runs through your mind: "What is wrong with this person?" — that is a "right"; then "No, I wasn't watching where I was going" — that is a "wrong"; or "He is wrong, I am wrong, everyone is wrong" — that is the repeated construction of "right" and "wrong."

According to the first layer of the *Jingde Chuandeng Lu*, "he is wrong," "I am wrong," "everyone is right" are all constructions. What are the facts? The facts are: the subway is crowded, a foot steps on you, and this event itself carries no "right/wrong" label. "Right" and "wrong" — correct and incorrect — are judgment structures constructed in your mind.

But here one must be careful about the first zone of misreading: it is not saying you "should not get angry" or "should feel that right and wrong don't matter." When your foot is stepped on, feeling pain is the body's honest response; there is no need to negate it. "No right and no wrong" does not cancel feeling; it sees clearly that the judgment system of "right/wrong" is imposed afterward. Pain, and "he is wrong," are two different things.

Scene Two: An Argument with Your Partner — At the Very Scene, the Hard Edge Loosens

Two people argue about housework, children, time allocation. As the argument escalates, it often upgrades into "you never…" and "you are just the kind of person who…" — this is the classic 「施設」: abstracting a specific event into an essential judgment about "this person" (a "right"), and this judgment then becomes a label pasted onto the other person.

The *Jingde Chuandeng Lu* especially emphasizes 「當境」. "At the very scene" means: now, this moment, the few seconds when this person says this sentence. If you can loosen from the fixed judgment "you are just the kind of person who doesn't like to keep things clean," and return to the specific situation "he forgot to take out the trash today" — right and wrong are still there, but you have not congealed it into an essential conclusion about "who this person is." This approaches the state of 「當境無是非」: it is not abstractly saying "there is no right and wrong," but in the present, in a specific situation, the hard edge of "it is always like this" does not rise up.

Common misreading zone: thinking that "no right and no wrong" = "blaming both sides equally in an argument." No. "At the very scene, no right and wrong" is not being wishy-washy; it is that you no longer see the other person in the mode of "this person is always A." The specific matter is still there; the wrong is still wrong; but you have not elevated "wrong" into an eternal essential verdict.

Scene Three: Taking Sides While Scrolling Your Phone — The Practice of Consecutive Removal

You scroll to a piece of news. One side says A, the other side says B. Your instinctive reaction is: side with A, or side with B. That is a "right." Then, seeing a different angle, you might lean toward B — that is a "wrong." But the deeper operation is this: the very mechanism of "one must have a position."

The passage from the *Jingde Chuandeng Lu* — 「無是非無動靜，無善惡無去來」 — gives us a practice method of consecutive removal: can you, after watching a video, not immediately find a position to stand on, but let the pair "right/wrong" loosen a little, let "should be moved / should be angry" loosen a little too, let "support this person / trample that person" loosen a little too? This does not mean you do not care; it means you are not immediately conscripted by any pair of concepts.

The misreading to avoid at this step is: do not slide into the cynicism of "nothing matters anyway." 「無善惡」 does not mean good and evil are unimportant; it means "good/evil" as a congealed conceptual pair cannot cover the complexity of things themselves.

Scene Four: The Cage of Self-Evaluation — Unloading Even the Name of "Mind-Dharma"

A mistake happens at work. A string of thoughts starts rising in your mind: "I'm just a careless person," "I'm not good enough," "I was never capable anyway." Then this set of judgments becomes part of the self: "This is just my personality."

The line from the *Jingde Chuandeng Lu* — 「非法亦非心，無心亦無法，是法非心法」 — is precisely dismantling this kind of cage. "Careless," "not good enough," "I'm just like this" — these are fixed labels abstracted from specific events (mind-dharmas). According to the logic of the canon, the moment these labels are set up, they are suspect — not that they are entirely baseless, but that they are not the original face of things; they are constructed.

"No right and no wrong" extends here to mean: even the category of "self" cannot be grasped as real. You are not the summary label you have pasted onto yourself.

Scene Five: After Awakening, Even "Awakening" Cannot Be Grasped — The Trap of the "Bright Mirror" and the "Empty Well"

The subtlest trap is this: you read some Chan stories, and you begin to pursue "a state of mind with no right and wrong." You start practicing meditation. You start making yourself "not have judgments." Gradually, you feel you are approaching a kind of "lofty stillness." This is precisely 「將身入空井」 and 「明鏡掛高臺」 — you have congealed "no right and no wrong" into a state, a more elevated, more luminous, more "awakened" condition. You think you are in non-discrimination, but in fact you are fashioning a new, more refined discrimination.

The warning of the *Jingde Chuandeng Lu* is: even the image of "non-discrimination" cannot be dwelt in. When you truly reach that state, the word "non-discrimination" too will fall off by itself like an outer garment.

III. Why Contemporary People Need It

「無是無非」 is not the personal preference of an ancient Chan master. The problem it addresses is more acute in contemporary life than it was in ancient times.

1. A Society of Judgment Overload

Contemporary people are wrapped in a system that demands taking a position around the clock: every news item summons you to pick a side; every post on your social feed implies some stance; colleagues' discussions, family meetings, social media algorithms — all reward you for rapidly forming "right/wrong" judgments. In such an environment, "no right and no wrong" offers the capacity to keep judgment from instantly hardening — not abstaining from judgment, but not letting judgment become an identity label.

2. The Trap of Cognitive Dichotomization

A phenomenon repeatedly observed in brain science research is: when faced with complex information, people tend to compress it into binary oppositions — like/dislike, support/oppose, friend/enemy. This simplification saves energy when cognitive resources are strained, but on complex issues it produces severe cognitive distortion. "No right and no wrong" offers, at the cognitive level, the capacity to allow complexity to remain for a while — the ability to not rush to compress "multi-dimensional matters" into "two-dimensional right and wrong."

But to be clear: this is an analogy, not a scientific proof. Brain science has not "proven" that Chan is correct; it has merely described some tendencies of the brain, and the Chan contemplative tradition offers a valuable perspective corresponding to these tendencies.

3. Loosening Self-Narrative

Contemporary psychology — especially narrative therapy, ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), and related approaches — is also reflecting on one thing: people are trapped by their own stories. "I'm just this kind of person," "I can never do anything right," "I am not loved." These are congealed self-narratives. From the perspective of 「無是無非」, these narratives are constructed "mind-dharmas" — they are not your original face; they are structures erected by language and experience. This contemporary tradition of self-reflection and the Chan tradition resonate deeply here, but their paths differ: psychology works mostly at the level of cognitive restructuring, while Chan penetrates to the level where mind-dharma itself has nothing to grasp.

4. The Specific Challenge of the Algorithm Age

Recommendation algorithms slice the world into what you "like" and "dislike"; social platforms polarize every expression of opinion into binary opposition through likes and dislikes. Fed by algorithms, it becomes increasingly difficult to remain in a state of "complex, contradictory, not capturable by simple right and wrong." "No right and no wrong" offers an alertness to and loosening of this kind of binary structure — allowing opposition to remain temporarily uncongealed, leaving yourself room to see complexity.

But again, it must be stated: this is analogy, not proof. Algorithms shape attention and judgment patterns; Chan observes the discriminating operation of mind — the problem domains of the two overlap, but their methods, goals, and philosophical presuppositions are very different. Do not mistake analogy for equivalence.

IV. Common Misreadings and Clarifications

Misreading One: "No Right and No Wrong" = Value Nihilism / "Nothing Needs to Be Distinguished"

This is the most common slippery slope. "No right and no wrong" is read as "there is no right and wrong in the world; do whatever you like."

Clarification: The *Jingde Chuandeng Lu* is not saying "right and wrong do not exist" — it is saying that "right/wrong" as a congealed pair of opposites cannot anchor in the mind's original state. In specific matters, wrong is still wrong, right is still right; but do not congeal this particular instance of "right/wrong" into an eternal verdict about a person or a thing. In other words: the right and wrong of this matter remain; the elevation of "this person is forever A" is released.

Misreading Two: "No Right and No Wrong" = Being Wishy-Washy / Having No Position

Some people treat "no right and no wrong" as a slick art of getting along — offend no one, take no side.

Clarification: What the *Jingde Chuandeng Lu* emphasizes is 「當境」 — it emphasizes that judgments are not hardened, not "never take a stand." A person can take a clear stance at a critical moment, yet his stance is not grasped as "I am just this kind of person" — this kind of clear-eyed, principled-but-uncongealed stance is precisely the contemporary counterpart of "no right and no wrong."

Misreading Three: "No Right and No Wrong" = A Lofty State to Be Pursued

Treating "no right and no wrong" as a goal to pursue — "today I want to enter the state of no right and no wrong" — this itself has already fallen into another kind of discrimination: you have already treated "no right and no wrong" as a state higher than "having right and wrong."

Clarification: The *Jingde Chuandeng Lu* already foresaw this trap. 「莫謾將身入空井」 is a direct warning: do not congeal "no right and no wrong" into the empty-still state of "a bright mirror hung on high." The moment you treat this state as something to be achieved, you have already re-constructed (施設) it.

Misreading Four: "No Right and No Wrong" = Canceling Feeling, Maintaining Coldness

Some people think "no right and no wrong" is a kind of emotional detachment — caring about nothing, and therefore never getting hurt.

Clarification: The *Jingde Chuandeng Lu* does not discuss the "presence/absence" of emotions; it discusses the "right/wrong" of judgments. When your foot is stepped on, it hurts; when you are misunderstood, you feel sad. These honest bodily and emotional responses need not be negated. What "no right and no wrong" addresses is the layer of elevating feelings into eternal judgments ("he is just that kind of person," "I am never understood") — not feeling itself.

Misreading Five: Understanding "No Right and No Wrong" as Some Mystical Experience

Some people read the lineage record and begin to imagine that "non-discrimination" is a mystical experience — like being illuminated, awakened, united with the cosmos.

Clarification: The tone of the *Jingde Chuandeng Lu* is extremely plain — it is not describing a psychic experience, but describing the state when the mind's discriminating function has not congealed. The closing line 「山僧見解只如此」 tells the reader explicitly: this is not a description of some mysterious state; this is the personal view of a mountain-dwelling renunciant. You do not need to pursue an "awakening experience"; what you need to do is, in the specific matters of the present moment, allow the hard edges of opposition room to loosen.

Misreading Six: Treating the "Mind" in the Lineage Record as a Mystical Entity

The *Jingde Chuandeng Lu* says "心同虛空界" ("the mind is like the realm of empty space"). Some people understand this "mind" as some kind of mystical entity or soul.

Clarification: In the Chan context, "mind" is not an entity existing inside the body; it refers to the whole functional complex of knowing, sensing, and discriminating. It is not a thing; it is a set of operations. When the master says "the mind is like empty space," he is saying that the mind's mode of operation can be unobstructed — like empty space not being confined to any single corner — not that "there is a thing called 'mind' that is as big as empty space."

In Closing

「無是無非」 is not asking you to become "a person without judgment," nor is it asking you to pursue a "transparent, lofty feeling." It is a very plain observation:

The "right/wrong" labels we paste onto the world are constructed; they were not originally growing on things.

When you can see this clearly in some specific situation — without canceling any judgment, but without letting judgment harden into eternity — you are already walking the path that the *Jingde Chuandeng Lu* passage describes.

And when you can see this clearly, remember the line that follows in the *Jingde Chuandeng Lu*:

Even "having seen through this point" — do not let that congeal either.

「莫謾將身入空井，亦無明鏡掛高臺。山僧見解只如此。」

Even the position from which you feel you have already "seen through" — let that loosen too. This is the gentlest and also the most severe aspect of Chan: when you think you have already let go, it asks you to let go even of the thought "I have already let go."