Let go of things as separate existences
and mind too vanishes.
Likewise when the thinking subject vanishes
so too do the objects created by mind.
The arising of other gives rise to self;
giving rise to self generates other.
Know these seeming two as facets
of the One Fundamental Reality.
In this Emptiness, these two are really one -
and each contains all phenomena.
- Hsin Hsin Ming, Verses on Faith Mind, Seng- Ts'an
Monday, June 27, 2011
Questions from the Wan Ling Record
Question: At the moment of Enlightenment, where is the Buddha?
Answer: Whence does your question come? Whence does your consciousness arise? When speech is silenced, all movement stilled, every sight and sound vanished—then is the Buddha’s work of deliverance truly going forward! Then, where will you seek the Buddha? You cannot place a head upon your head, or lips upon your lips; rather, you should just refrain from every kind of dualistic distinction. Hills are hills. Water is water. Monks are monks. Laypeople are laypeople. But these mountains, these rivers, the whole world itself, together with sun, moon, and stars—not one of them exists outside your minds!
Outside Mind, there is nothing. The green hills which everywhere meet your gaze and that void sky that you see glistening above the earth—not a hairsbreadth of any of them exists outside the concepts you have formed for yourself! So it is that every single sight and sound is but the Buddha’s Eye of Wisdom.
Phenomena do not arise independently but rely upon environment. And it is their appearing as objects which necessitates all sorts of individualized knowledge. You may talk the whole day through, yet what has been said? You may listen from dawn till dusk, yet what will you have heard? Thus, though Gautama Buddha preached for forty-nine years, in truth no word was spoken.
Question: Assuming all this is so, what particular state is connoted by the word Bodhi?
Answer: Bodhi is no state. The Buddha did not attain to it. Sentient beings do not lack it. It cannot be reached with the body nor sought with the mind. All sentient beings are already of one form with Bodhi.
Question: But how does one “Attain to the Bodhi-Mind?”
Answer: Bodhi is not something to be attained. If, at this very moment, you could convince yourselves of its unattainability, being certain indeed that nothing at all can ever be attained, you would already be Bodhi-minded. Since Bodhi is not a state, it is nothing for you to attain. And therefore, it is written of Gautama Buddha: “While I was yet in the realm of Dipamkara Buddha, there was not a grain of anything to be attained by me. It was then that Dipamkara Buddha made his prophecy that I, too, should become a Buddha.”
If you know positively that all sentient beings are already one with Bodhi, you will cease thinking of Bodhi as something to be attained. You may recently have heard others talking about this “attaining the Bodhi-Mind,” but this may be called an intellectual way of driving the Buddha away! By following this method, you only appear to achieve Buddhahood; if you were to spend eon upon eon in that way, you would only achieve Sambogakaya and Nirmanankaya. (ie you would achieve the physical and spiritual aspects of a Buddha, which an Enlightened One bears within various realms of transitory existence, but you would lack the Dharmakaya, the aspect of a Buddha as identical with the Absolute.) What connection would all that have with your original and real Buddha-Nature? Therefore is it written: “Seeking outside for a Buddha possessed of form has nothing to do with you.”
Question: If we have always been one with the Buddha Absolute, why are there nevertheless beings who come into existence through the four kinds of birth and enter the six states of existence, each with the characteristic form and appearance of its kind?
Answer:The essential Buddha-Substance is a perfect whole, without superfluity or lack. It permeates the six states of existence and yet is everywhere perfectly whole. Thus, every single one of the myriads of phenomena in the universe is the Buddha. This substance may be likened to a quantity of quicksilver which, being scattered in all directions, everywhere re-forms into perfect wholes. When undispersed, it is of one piece, the one comprising the whole and the whole comprising the one. The various forms and appearances, on the other hand, may be likened to dwellings. Just as one abandons a stable in favor of a house, so one exchanges a physical body for a heavenly body, and so on up the planes of Prateyaka-Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas. But all alike are things sought by you or abandoned by you; hence the differences between them. How is it possible that the original and essential nature of the universe should be subject to this differentiation?
Question: How do the Buddhas, out of their vast mercy and compassion, preach the Dharma to sentient beings?
Answer: We speak of their mercy and compassion as vast just because it is beyond causality and therefore infinite. By mercy is really meant not conceiving of a Buddha to be enlightened, while compassion really means not conceiving of sentient beings to be delivered.
In reality, their Dharma is neither preached in words nor otherwise signified; and those who listen neither hear nor attain. It is as though an imaginary teacher had preached to imaginary people. As regards all these dharmas (teachings), if, for the sake of the Way, I speak to you from my deeper knowledge and lead you forward, you will certainly be able to understand what I say; and as to mercy and compassion, if for your sakes I take to thinking things out and studying other people’s concepts—in neither case will you have reached a true perception of the real nature of your own Mind from within yourselves. So, in the end, these things will be of no help at all.
Huang-Po
Excerpted from The Zen Teaching of Huang Po-On the Transmission of Mind - Translated by John Blofeld 1958 - DailyZen
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Who is in the well?
A young novice asked Ch'an Master Hsing-kung, "What was the meaning of the Patriarch's coming from the West?"
The Master replied, "Assume someone fell into a well that is one thousand feet deep. If you can rescue him without using even an inch of rope, then I will tell you."
The novice said, "Ch'an Master Ch'ang of Hunan who passed away recently was just like you. Your style of speech is nonsensical."
Hsing-kung ordered Yang-shan to oust the novice from the temple.
Later, Yang-shan asked Ch'an Master Tan-yuan, "In your judgment, how can the man in the well be rescued?"
Tan-yuan exclaimed, "You fool! Who is in the well?"
Yang-shan was unable to respond.
Another time, he questioned Ch'an Master Kuei-shan, "Master, how do you think the man in the well can be rescued?"
Kuei-shan caught Yang-shan off guard and shouted, "Yang-shan!"
When Yang-shan responded, Master Kuei-shan said, "The man is already out."
Sometime later, when Yang-shan started to teach, he often told people, "I have received my spirtual life at Master Tan-yuan's temple and my realization at Kuei-shan's."
The Master replied, "Assume someone fell into a well that is one thousand feet deep. If you can rescue him without using even an inch of rope, then I will tell you."
The novice said, "Ch'an Master Ch'ang of Hunan who passed away recently was just like you. Your style of speech is nonsensical."
Hsing-kung ordered Yang-shan to oust the novice from the temple.
Later, Yang-shan asked Ch'an Master Tan-yuan, "In your judgment, how can the man in the well be rescued?"
Tan-yuan exclaimed, "You fool! Who is in the well?"
Yang-shan was unable to respond.
Another time, he questioned Ch'an Master Kuei-shan, "Master, how do you think the man in the well can be rescued?"
Kuei-shan caught Yang-shan off guard and shouted, "Yang-shan!"
When Yang-shan responded, Master Kuei-shan said, "The man is already out."
Sometime later, when Yang-shan started to teach, he often told people, "I have received my spirtual life at Master Tan-yuan's temple and my realization at Kuei-shan's."
The Attainment of Non-Attainment
 |
| By Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpoche |
Reality itself is not something devised or made up. What you have to do here is accustom yourself to that, practice that. You are not taking up a meditation, but rather are practicing something. Like any activity, when you practice and become accustomed to it, it becomes easier and easier. So, acquaint yourself with this lack of anything whatsoever to be taken up as a discrete object. Focus on reality itself and become accustomed to that. Tilopa's advice, then, is that if you attain something by this Mahamudra practice, then you have not attained Mahamudra. Attaining Mahamudra is attaining non-attainment. If you are not getting anything, then you're getting Mahamudra. If you get some thing, then necessarily it is not Mahamudra.
What is the meaning of this? If, when we strive for Buddhahood, we think that Buddhahood is something that we are going to get, we will be making a great mistake. We would be like hunters going after an animal. Buddhahood would be reduced to just another worldly activity in which we engage to get some pleasure for ourselves. Mahamudra is not like that, it is not some thing to be obtained. It is attaining the state of non-attainment. Understanding that, we do not focus on obtaining something but on transcending. We have to get beyond that search for something to grasp onto.
Now the nature of reality is beyond the illusion of the phenomenal world, the world as it appears. What appears is illusory; reality is something else. So, when engaging in this meditation on Mahamudra, one seeks to realize Mahamudra. As long as it is something that is an object of mind, something that is conceived by mind, then is it necessarily something other than Mahamudra. Mahamudra is not a conception, not something which is of the nature of appearances or of the nature of objects of the conventional mind.
Therefore, whatever we look for, whatever we try to hold on to in terms of objects of mind, is not going to be Mahamudra. It is something other than that. It is not of the nature of the phenomenal world in any sense. As long as we conceive of it as something, we are making a mistake and will not attain the realization of Mahamudra in that way. Tilopa's advice is that if the disciple wishes to see Mahamudra, the disciple must go beyond conventional mind and abandon worldly involvement, because the conventional mind and worldly activities are what obscure the realization of Mahamudra and can never lead to it.
Excerpted from the book The Practice of Mahamudra - Drikung Kyabgon Chetsang Rinpoche - Snow Lion Publications
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Awakening
By Shakyamuni Buddha
When I was a young person, at the beginning of my life, I looked at nature and saw that all things are subject to decay and death and thus to sorrow. The thought came to me that I myself was of such a nature. I was the same as all created things. I too would be subject to disease, decay, death, and sorrow. But what if I were to search for that which underlies all becoming, for the unsurpassed perfect security which is nirvana, the perfect freedom of the unconditioned state?
So, in the first flush of my independence, I went against my father’s wishes, shaved off my thick black hair, put on a saffron robe, and left my father’s house for a homeless life. I wandered a long time, searching for what is good, searching after an unsurpassed state of peace.
At last I came to a pleasant forest grove, next to a river of pure water and sat down beneath a big tree, sure that this was the right place for realization.
All the conditions of the world came into my mind, one after another, and as they came, they were penetrated and put down. In this way, finally, a knowledge and insight arose, and I knew that this was the changeless, the unconditioned. This was freedom.
The reality that came to me is profound and hard to see or understand because it is beyond the sphere of thinking. It is sublime and unequaled but subtle and only to be found by the dedicated.
Most people fail to see this reality, for they are attached to what they cling to, to pleasures and delights. Since all the world is attached to material things, it’s very difficult for people to grasp how everything originates in conditions and causes. It’s a hard job for them to see the meaning of the fact that everything, including ourselves, depends on everything else and has no permanent self-existence.
If I were to try to teach this truth, this reality, nobody would understand me, I thought. My labor and my trouble would be for nothing.
But then it came to me as an insight that I should teach this truth, for it is also happiness. There are people whose sight is only a little clouded, and they are suffering through not hearing the reality. They would become knowers of the truth.
It was in this way I went forth to teach:
For those who are ready, the door
To the deathless state is open.
You that have ears, give up
The conditions that bind you,
And enter in.
Majijhima Nikaya
All those who clearly understand the fact that enlightenment is everywhere come to the perfect wisdom with a marvelous insight that all objects and structures, just as they are in the present moment, are themselves enlightenment, both the way and the goal, being perfectly transparent to the ineffable. Those who experience the ineffable, known as Suchness, recognize that all structures are radiantly empty of self-existence.
Those who attain perfect wisdom are forever inspired by the conviction that the infinitely varied forms of this world, in all their relativity, far from being a hindrance and a dangerous distraction to the spiritual path, are really a healing medicine. Why? Because by the very fact that they are interdependent on each other and therefore have no separate self, they express the mystery and the energy of all-embracing love. Not just the illumined wise ones but every single being in the interconnected world is a dweller in the boundless infinity of love.
Prajnaparamita Sutra - Scriptures of the Buddha - Excerpted from The Buddha Speaks edited by Anne Bancroft 2000
From: Daily Zen
When I was a young person, at the beginning of my life, I looked at nature and saw that all things are subject to decay and death and thus to sorrow. The thought came to me that I myself was of such a nature. I was the same as all created things. I too would be subject to disease, decay, death, and sorrow. But what if I were to search for that which underlies all becoming, for the unsurpassed perfect security which is nirvana, the perfect freedom of the unconditioned state?
So, in the first flush of my independence, I went against my father’s wishes, shaved off my thick black hair, put on a saffron robe, and left my father’s house for a homeless life. I wandered a long time, searching for what is good, searching after an unsurpassed state of peace.
At last I came to a pleasant forest grove, next to a river of pure water and sat down beneath a big tree, sure that this was the right place for realization.
All the conditions of the world came into my mind, one after another, and as they came, they were penetrated and put down. In this way, finally, a knowledge and insight arose, and I knew that this was the changeless, the unconditioned. This was freedom.
The reality that came to me is profound and hard to see or understand because it is beyond the sphere of thinking. It is sublime and unequaled but subtle and only to be found by the dedicated.
Most people fail to see this reality, for they are attached to what they cling to, to pleasures and delights. Since all the world is attached to material things, it’s very difficult for people to grasp how everything originates in conditions and causes. It’s a hard job for them to see the meaning of the fact that everything, including ourselves, depends on everything else and has no permanent self-existence.
If I were to try to teach this truth, this reality, nobody would understand me, I thought. My labor and my trouble would be for nothing.
But then it came to me as an insight that I should teach this truth, for it is also happiness. There are people whose sight is only a little clouded, and they are suffering through not hearing the reality. They would become knowers of the truth.
It was in this way I went forth to teach:
For those who are ready, the door
To the deathless state is open.
You that have ears, give up
The conditions that bind you,
And enter in.
Majijhima Nikaya
All those who clearly understand the fact that enlightenment is everywhere come to the perfect wisdom with a marvelous insight that all objects and structures, just as they are in the present moment, are themselves enlightenment, both the way and the goal, being perfectly transparent to the ineffable. Those who experience the ineffable, known as Suchness, recognize that all structures are radiantly empty of self-existence.
Those who attain perfect wisdom are forever inspired by the conviction that the infinitely varied forms of this world, in all their relativity, far from being a hindrance and a dangerous distraction to the spiritual path, are really a healing medicine. Why? Because by the very fact that they are interdependent on each other and therefore have no separate self, they express the mystery and the energy of all-embracing love. Not just the illumined wise ones but every single being in the interconnected world is a dweller in the boundless infinity of love.
Prajnaparamita Sutra - Scriptures of the Buddha - Excerpted from The Buddha Speaks edited by Anne Bancroft 2000
From: Daily Zen
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Looking Nakedly, Resting Still
I the yogi, Milarepa, look nakedly and see the essence
What I see is beyond concept what I see resembles space
Free from motion, resting still - I realize the true nature
All the things there are empty - their empty essence is what I realize
Relaxing loosely, letting go - original wisdom holds its ground
In the river of awareness the mud settles down and the brightness shines
I take my concepts and throw them away - recollection and thoughts are cut
The deep abyss of the six realms has been sealed completely - that's over for me know
I know for sure my mind is Buddha, so there's nothing I need to gain or achieve
When realization shines from inside, it's like when the sun's light shines on the night
All my thoughts, the whole collection, and disturbing states of mind
Without effort, in their own place, disappearing and now gone
Milarepa
What I see is beyond concept what I see resembles space
Free from motion, resting still - I realize the true nature
All the things there are empty - their empty essence is what I realize
Relaxing loosely, letting go - original wisdom holds its ground
In the river of awareness the mud settles down and the brightness shines
I take my concepts and throw them away - recollection and thoughts are cut
The deep abyss of the six realms has been sealed completely - that's over for me know
I know for sure my mind is Buddha, so there's nothing I need to gain or achieve
When realization shines from inside, it's like when the sun's light shines on the night
All my thoughts, the whole collection, and disturbing states of mind
Without effort, in their own place, disappearing and now gone
Milarepa
Buddha and anger
Treat your anger with the utmost respect and tenderness, for it is no other than yourself. Do not suppress it—simply be aware of it. Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed. When you are aware that you are angry, your anger is transformed. If you destroy anger, you destroy the Buddha, for Buddha and Mara are of the same essence.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Monday, June 06, 2011
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
You are beyond it
There are no conditions to fulfil. There is nothing to be done, nothing to be given up. Just look and remember, whatever you perceive is not you, nor yours. It is there in the field of consciousness, but you are not the field and its contents, not even the knower of the field. It is your idea that you have to do things that entangle you in the results of your efforts - the motive, the desire, the failure to achieve, the sense of frustration - all this holds you back. Simply look at whatever happens and know that you are beyond it.
Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
It is free just as it is
By Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche
For ordinary beings, mind is discursive. It moves. It moves towards objects. It moves towards the three times. It is constantly thinking about one thing or another. Mind is moved by thoughts of the five poisons. When mind encounters an object it likes, it moves towards that object with thoughts of attachment. When mind encounters an object it does not like, it moves towards that object with thoughts of aversion, thoughts of anger. When mind judges something incorrectly, it moves towards that object with bewilderment. When one’s mind believes that one has qualities that one does not have, it moves towards oneself with thoughts of arrogance. When mind looks at somebody else and sees things that it does not have, it moves towards that person with thoughts of jealously. In this way, thoughts of the five poisons constantly move the mind. “Leave thinking mind to rest without contrivances.” When thoughts of the five poisons are moving the mind, just let mind rest without trying to fix anything, without trying to change anything, without reviewing the past kleshas (disturbing mental states) or wondering what happened to them; and without anticipating what types of disturbing states of mind one might experience in the future. Do not review the past, do not guess the future. Just let mind relax as it is right now.
We do not need to try to prevent thoughts of desire from arising. We do not need to try to stop thoughts of anger or jealously once they have arisen. Do not try to prevent anything; do not try to stop or change anything; just simply do not take any of those movements of mind to be truly existent. That is the instruction because we could not stop the thoughts of the five poisons from arising, even if we wanted to! We could not do that, but we do not have to. All we have to do is recognize that these thoughts lack any essence.
How do we do this? Whatever thought arises, look straight at it with your eye of wisdom and settle into its basic nature. When you do that, all thoughts and all disturbing states of mind are liberated within the dharmakaya. They are self-liberated. The whole collection of thoughts is free just as it is. This is awareness, and this awareness is awareness-emptiness. Since this awareness-emptiness is pure in nature, whatever obscurations there may be have no essence. Awareness itself is self-liberated. It is free just as it is.
From: DannyFisher
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