Whatever you are doing ... 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.... 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!
Foyan Qingyan [1067-1120]
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All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measures, names, traces and comparisons. It is that which you see before you—begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error. It is like the boundless void which cannot be fathomed or measured.
The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things, but that sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddhahood. By their very seeking they lose it, for that is using the Buddha to seek for the Buddha and using mind to grasp Mind. Even though they do their utmost for a full aeon, they will not be able to attain to it. They do not know that, if they put a stop to conceptual thought and forget their anxiety, the Buddha will appear before them, for this Mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings. It is not the less for being manifested in ordinary beings, nor is it greater for being manifested in the Buddhas.
Huangbo Xiyun [? - 850?]
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Wandering Ronin commentary and questions: Much has been spoken from the Zen masters in many different ways, seemingly in an attempt to meet all of those who approach Zen in different ways. Then again, the more well-read and versed one becomes in Zen, the more that the different fingers that point towards the moon can seem to start looking the same. Why is that? Is there a common code or synergistic pattern about the very same truth that Zen points to, passed down from master to monk? Is this code meant to be unlocked and 'solved' by a continual study of the texts, and then dropped completely once discovered? As the saying goes, forget the pointing finger and see the moon.
Submitted February 02, 2019 at 10:30PM by WanderingRoninXIII http://bit.ly/2DQMdqE
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