Adding my own commentary inline, in bold text. Quotations within my commentary will be "in italics".
Many are those who have seen but can do nothing about it. Once you have seen, why can’t you do anything about it? Just because of not discerning; that is why you are helpless. If you see and discern, then you can do something about it.
Nevertheless, if you expect to understand as soon as you are inspired to study Zen, well, who wouldn’t like that? It’s just that you have no way in, and you cannot force understanding. Failing to mesh with it in every situation, missing the connection at every point, you cannot get it by exertion of force.
Whatever you are doing, twenty-four hours a day, in all your various activities, there is something that transcends the Buddhas and Zen Masters; but as soon as you want to understand it, it’s not there. It’s not really there; as soon as you try to gather your attention on it, you have already turned away from it. That is why I say you see but cannot do anything about it.
Does this mean that you will realize it if you do not aim the mind and do not develop intellectual understanding? Far from it— you will fail even more seriously to realize it. Even understanding does not get it, much less not understanding!
"Empty-handed, holding a hoe,
Walking, riding a water buffalo.
Man is crossing a bridge;
The bridge but not the river flows."
(Mahasattva Fu)
If you are spiritually sharp, you can open your eyes and see as soon as you hear me tell you about this. Have not people of immeasurable greatness said this truth is not comprehensible by thought, and that it is where knowledge does not reach? Were it not like this, how could it be called an enlightened truth?
Nowadays, however, people just present interpretations and views, making up rationalizations; they have never learned to be thus, and have never reached this state.
Sounds familiar! :D
If people with potential for enlightenment are willing to see in this way, they must investigate molt deeply and examine most closely; all of a sudden they will gain mastery of it and have no further doubt. The reason you do not understand is just because you are taken away by random thoughts twenty-four hours a day. Since you want to learn business, you fall in love with things you see and fondly pursue things you read; over time, you get continuously involved. How can you manage to work on enlightenment then?
Generally speaking, there are appropriate times for those who study business. Over the age of thirty, it’s better not to study, because it will be hard to learn even if you do, and it will also be of dubious value. If you have taken care of your own business, on the other hand— that is, the business of the self— then you will still be able to learn through study, because you have been transformed. But if you have done with your own business, why would you study? If you are twenty years of age or thereabouts, you can still study, but if you are spiritually sharp and intent on the matter of life and death, you won’t study anything else.
Whenever you seek Zen, furthermore, your mind ground must be even antkstraight, and your mind and speech must be in accord. Since your mind and speech are straightforward, your states are-thus consistent from start to finish, without any petty details.
Do not say, “I understand! I have attained mastery!” If you have attained mastery, then why are you going around asking other people questions? As soon as you say you understand Zen, people watch whatever you do and whatever you say, wondering why you said this or that. If you claim to understand Zen, moreover, this is actually a contention of ignorance.
What about the saying that one should “silently shine, hiding one’s enlightenment”?
What about “concealing one’s name and covering one’s tracks”?
What about “the path is not different from the human mind” ?
"Becoming a Buddha and being a patriarch is disliked for wearing a defiled name; wearing horns and fur is pushed to the superior position. That is why ‘true light doesn’t shine, great wisdom appears foolish.’ There is yet another who is deaf for convenience and pretends not to be skillful—do we know who that is?"
(Book of Serenity, Wansong Xingxiu, trans. by Thomas Cleary)
Each of you should individually reduce entanglements and not talk about judgments of right and wrong. All of your activities everywhere transcend Buddhas and Masters, the water buffalo at the foot of the mountain is imbued with Buddhism; but as soon as you try to search, it’s not there. Why do you not discern this?
"When Nanquan was about to pass away, the head monk asked, "After you die, where will you go?" Nanquan said, "Down the mountain, to be a water buffalo." The monk said, "Can I follow you?" Nanquan said, "If you follow me, you must come with a blade of grass in your mouth."
"(Book of Serenity, Wansong Xingxiu, trans. by Thomas Cleary)"
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Question: Do you understand Zen? Have you attained mastery?
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Submitted March 22, 2018 at 05:34AM by hookdump http://ift.tt/2GRJhKm
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