Students of the Way should be sure that the four elements composing the body do not constitute the 'self', that the 'self' is not an entity; and that it can be deduced from this that the body is neither 'self' nor entity. Moreover, the five aggregates composing the mind (in the common sense) do not constitute either a 'self' or an entity; hence, it can be deduced that the (so-called individual) mind is neither 'self' nor entity.
The six sense organs (including the brain) which, together with their six types of perception and the six kinds of objects of perception, constitute the sensory world, must be understood in the same way. Those eighteen aspects of sense are separately and together void. There is only Mind-Source, limitless in extent and of absolute purity.
Huangbo Xiyun [died 850?], On the Transmission of Mind, translated by John Blofeld, 1958
Note: The five aggregates are: form (or matter or body), sensations (or feelings, received from form), perceptions, mental activity or formations, and consciousness.
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Mind and body dropped off; dropped off mind and body! This state should be experienced by everyone; it is like piling fruit into a basket without a bottom, like pouring water into a bowl with a pierced hole; however much you may pile or pour you cannot fill it up. When this is realized the pail bottom is broken through. But while there is still a trace of conceptualism which makes you say 'I have this understanding' or 'I have that realization', you are still playing with unrealities.
Dogen Zenji [1200 - 1253], writing about his own enlightenment experience
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Wandering Ronin commentary: We must let fall body and mind is an old Zen saying which originates from Dogen and his master Eisai that I've used often in the forum. It seems to cause turmoil and confusion for some, but here even Huangbo's teachings align with the wisdom of it. In Zen, people are only up against what they've brought along with them in the first place; what could be more in the way of the Way than body and mind?
Huangbo teaches that what is generally thought to constitute the 'self' is an illusion, one which should be dropped in order to realize and come to an understanding of the Mind-Source or absolute. None of the five aggregates or the concepts of 'self' have any distinct value over anything else among the myriad things, and holding on to them as 'special' only creates binding imbalances that restrict freedom. What the teaching of we must let fall body and mind or mind and body dropped off points to is how people are often bound up in the notions and persistence of this 'self', which causes unskillful concepts of separation that blinds us from understanding the absolute. When Dogen talks of the bottom of the pail being broken through, it illuminates how not holding on to this binding self or its thoughts and concepts allows great freedom.
Submitted May 27, 2019 at 08:17PM by WanderingRoninXIII http://bit.ly/30JZ1bQ
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