Ordinary men’ and ‘buddha’ are both just names. As names they are the same, without difference [1]. It is as if one were speaking about the hair of a tortoise or about the horns of a hare [2]…I say that there is no such thing as the hairs of a tortoise, but I do not state that there is no tortoise…[this] tortoise is analogous to the Way, and the hairs point at the self. Buddha is without self and thus is the Way [3]. Ordinary men are obsessed with names and self—this is how they are different from the Buddha—and so are convinced that the tortoise has hairs and that the hare has horns.

Ox-head School, 絕觀論 Jue guan lun (Treatise on Cutting off Discernment)

[1] They’re both empty designations.

[2] That is, they do not correspond to something real or correlate to anything in reality.

[3] That without self [i.e. that which is empty of substance] is the Buddha and the Way; this means abandoning any notions of substance, essence, absolute, or foundation behind things, particularly in regards to the self (including notions of a monist self, an individual self, a transcendental self, and so on).

***

Los hombres ordinarios 'y' Buda 'son a la vez sólo nombres. Como nombres iguales, no hay diferencia [1]. Es como si uno estuviera hablando sobre el cabello de una tortuga o sobre los cuernos de una liebre [2] ... Yo digo que no hay tal cosa como los cabellos de una tortuga, pero yo no estoy indicando de que no existe una tortuga ... [esta] tortuga es análoga a la Vía y los pelos apuntan hacia el yo. Buda es sin yo y por lo tanto es la Vía[3]. Los hombres comunes están obsesionados con los nombres y el yo -esta es la forma en que se diferencian del Buda y así están convencidos de que la tortuga tiene pelos y de que la liebre tiene cuernos.


[1] Los dos son designaciones vacías.

[2] Es decir, que no se corresponden con algo real o se correlacionan con nada en realidad.

[3] Que sin yo [es decir, lo que está vacío de contenidos] es el Buda y el Camino; esto significa abandonar cualquier noción de sustancia, esencia, absoluto, o fundamento detrás de las cosas, sobre todo en lo que respecta a lo propio (incluyendo nociones de un yo monista, un yo individual, un yo trascendental, y así sucesivamente).

ox-head.tumblr.com

y la ciencia popular china cree en una tortuga con pelo:

one of these hairy terrapins, and upon that occasion a correspondent, ‘A. B.,’ kindly sent me the following note: 'In the “Travels of a Pioneer of Commerce in Pigtail and Petticoats,” by T. T. Cooper (London, Murray, 1871, page 459), there is a plate of one of these hairy tortoises from the lakes of Hasu, above Hankow. These curious little animals were about two inches long, and covered on the back with a long confervoid growth resembling hair. The tortoise being a sacred emblem in China, the Chinese make pets of the hairy tortoise, which they keep in basins of water during the summer months, and bury in sand during the winter. A small lake in the province of Kiang-su is famous for these so-called hairy tortoises, and many persons earn a livelihood by the sale of these curious little pets. The figure in Mr. Cooper’s book looks like an oval door-mat with a tortoise-head sticking out at one end.’"I have been to the British Museum to see if I could find anything like this hairy terrapin, but could not do so. I shall take the liberty of forwarding this article to his Excellency the Chinese ambassador, who, I have no doubt, with his usual kindness, will obtain some further information about this great curiosity.“