Foyan 佛眼清遠
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Pin-Yin: Fóyǎn Qīngyuǎn
* Japanese: Butsugen Seion
Foyan Qingyuan lived during the time of the Song Dynasty China near what is now the city of Chengdu.
Foyan left his home when he was 14 years old. Upon finding the following passage in the Lotus Sutra, Foyan sought to find understanding:
It is the Dharma that can not be seen through the thought that it can be achieved.
The Buddhist monks he found could not explain this matter, and he was told to head south (like another Zen Master we've talked about recently...)
After practicing for some time with a Zen Master named Yan, Foyan heard in the streets, after falling into the mud and lamenting to himself, "I am on the journey, but have been unable to attain Zen. I haven't eaten all day, and now have to endure this misery too!", a man say "You’re still annoying yourself!”"
Foyan was struck by this, and he returned to ask Yan, but the master replied with:
I'm not you. You can do it yourself.
Later, he studied under Wuzu Fayan along with two other titans some around these parts might know: Yuanwu Kequin and Fojian Huiqin.
It was while studying under Fayan that Foyan had realization, and he became a very (in)famous teacher of Zen in his area!
In his Instant Zen Foyan attempts to make the matter directly clear. In described the experience of the enlightened, he says:
Those who attain enlightenment do not see walking when they walk, and do not ste sitting when they sit.
That is why the Buddha said, “The eyes seeing forms is equivalent to blindness; the ears hearing sounds is equivalent to deafness.”
I'm of the mindset that a skilled teacher is better at asking questions than answering, and Foyan is no exception! He goes on to say:
How can we say we are as if blind and deaf? When we hear sound, there is no sound to be heard; when we see form, there is no form to be seen. What we see and hear is all equivalent to an echo. It is like seeing all sorts of things in a dream— is there all that when you wake up?
Well, is it?? Speak, speak!
Let's see how Foyan responds:
If you say yes, yet there’s only the blanket and pillow on the bed; if you say no, yet all those things are clearly registered in your mind, and you can tell what they were. The same is true of what you see and hear now in broad daylight.
So which is it? Would you deny the validity of what you see in plain sight? And yet, do you deny that what you see is of your own mind?
What is seen by the eye or heard by the ear can be studied as we all know. Shakespeare, quarks, Mozart, the cool refreshing taste of Pepsi-Cola, we know how to study these things of which we are aware. But... Foyan asks:
but what about the basis of awareness itself— how do you study that?
When an assistant told him the rain had not yet stopped, and thus people may not be able to hear if a previously planned meeting was still held, Foyan muses whether the rain stopping affects whether you hear.
Selfishly and grandmotherly spewing out his insides, he says:
How about when they say the sound of the rain has given you a sermon? Is that correct? I do not agree; the sound of the rain is you giving a sermon. But do you understand? Clarify it directly; then what else is there?
Some may say this post is me writing to you. I ask you to ponder what Foyan's own teacher wrote in his verse of realization:
How many times have I sold and bought myself?
Let us sell the words of Foyan this month and see who decides to make a bid!
Submitted February 03, 2019 at 03:25AM by NegativeGPA http://bit.ly/2WF2Kpg
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