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, On the Transmission of Mind, translated by John Blofeld, 1958
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Wandering Ronin commentary and questions: Now its time for me to move along to some more advanced questions and theories regarding the teachings of Zen. What Huangbo teaches above is about One Mind, or in other words, the absolute. Full disclosure: the temporal world and the absolute are not two separate things. There are no mysterious or esoteric levels that are undiscovered in Zen; its all about realizing what mind and delusion is, dropping concepts and finding more skillful vantage points on the great matter at hand.
After enough study and or practice in Zen, the knowledge of the absolute may become apparent. Anyone that has followed my journey in here for a long enough time could see how obvious it is when someone first gets a taste of it. How unseemly! My question is now: what does someone do at this point with the knowledge of the absolute One Mind? It seems like quite a crucial stage; the possibilities are now limitless. It all reminds me of an old joke: One guy said to another, "Money doesn't change you, it just makes you more of who you are." The second guy thought about this for a moment, then said, "Yes, but what if you're an asshole?"
So with knowledge of this One Mind or absolute, there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things, and everything is One Mind, what then? Someone could "go into the marketplace with helping hands" as shown in the final stage of the Ten Ox-herding Pictures, or start breaking into people's houses and stealing things, with the excuse, "Hey man, I can't steal from anyone. Its all One anway!" haha. So what now? What will you do with this knowledge of the absolute, and how will you apply it in your life?
Submitted May 03, 2019 at 07:34PM by WanderingRoninXIII http://bit.ly/2UU8Csw
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