Zen is like learning archery

Step back on your own to look into reality long enough to attain an unequivocally true and real experience of enlightenment. Then with every thought you are consulting infinite teachers.

Over the course of centuries, Zen has branched out into different schools with individual methods, but the purpose is still the same—to point directly to the human mind.

Once the ground of mind is ciarified, there is no obstruction at all—you shed views and interpretations that are based on concepts such as victory and defeat, self and others, right and wrong.

Thus you pass through all that and reach a realm of great rest and tranquility.

Zen requires opening the mind and losing all false cognition and false views. When nothing hangs on your mind and you have passed through cleanly, then you are ready for refinement.

In Zen, sudden release into realization isn't subject to either ruin or support by other people. Be totally aloof, and one day you will boldly pass through with penetrating senses to experience Zen directly.

Then you use it at will, you act at will, without so many things going through your mind.

When this is developed to maturity and you let go all at once, you immediately attain rest and comfort right where you are.

If you want to attain intimate realization of Zen, first of all don't seek it. What is attained by seeking has already fallen into intellection.

The great treasury of Zen has always been open and clear; it has always been the source of power for all your actions.

But only when you stop your compulsive mind, to reach the point where not a single thing is born, do you pass through to freedom, not falling into feelings and not dwelling on concepts, transcending all completely.

Then Zen is obvious everywhere in the worid, with the totality of everything everywhere turning into its great function.

Everything comes from your own heart. This is what one ancient called bringing out the family treasure.

If you have great perceptions and capacities, you need not necessarily contemplate the sayings and stories of ancient Zen masters. Just correct your attention and quiet your mind from the time you arise in the morning, and whatever you say or do, review it carefully and see where it comes from and what makes all this happen.

Once you can pass through right in the midst of present worldly conditions, the same applies to all conditions—what need is there to remove them? Then you can go beyond "Zen," transcend all parameters, and magically produce a sanctuary of purity, effortlessness, and coolness, right in the midst of the turmoil of the world.

The Way is arrived at by enlightenment. The first priority is to establish resolve—it is no small matter to step directly from the bondage of the ordinary person into transcendent experience of the realm of sages. It requires that your mind be firm as steel to cut off the flow of birth and death, accept your original real nature, not see anything at all as existing inside or outside yourself, and make your heart perfectly clear, without any obstruction, so all actions and endeavors emerge from the fundamental.

Let go of all your previous imaginings, opinions, interpretations, worldly knowledge, intellectualism, egoism, and competitiveness; become like a dead tree, like cold ashes. When you reach the point where feelings are ended, views are gone, and your mind is clean and naked, you open up to Zen realization.

After that it is also necessary to develop consistency, keeping the mind pure and free from adulteration at all times. If there is the slightest fluctuation, there is no hope of transcending the world.

Cut through resolutely, and then your State will be peaceful. When you cannot be included in any stage, whether of sages or of ordinary people, then you are like a bird freed from its cage.

Set aside all the slogans you have learned and all the intellectual views that stick to your skin and cling to your flesh. Make your mind empty, not manifesting any thoughts on your own, not doing anything at all. Then you can attain thoroughgoing Zen experience.

But even when you reach this point, you should still realize that there is progressive action that transcends a teacher.

An ancient Zen master said that Zen is like learning archery; only after long practice do you hit the bullseye.

Enlightenment is experienced instantaneously, but Zen work must be done over a long time, like a bird that when first hatched is naked and scrawny, but then grows feathers as it is nourished, until it can fly high and far.

Therefore those who have attained clear penetrating enlighten- ment then need fine tuning.

When it comes to worldly situations, by which ordinary people get suffocated, those who have attained Zen get through them all by being empty. Thus everything is their own gateway to liberation.

-Yuanwu

Submitted August 18, 2016 at 03:19AM by ChanZong http://ift.tt/2aWvhlK