Okay, if it's all about effortlessness, letting go, wei wu wei, why does it take so much hard work?

Because you're walking into it with a whole host of acquired problems and diseases that you need to get rid of first before the mind ground will appear clearly as it has always been.

You've spent a lifetime adding to the general afflictions and obscurations that beset mindkind in a myraid of ways, and while insight can arises, those problems will still persist as long as the given set of conditions that gave rise to them persists.

If you don't believe me, attempt right now to sit in one of the recommended postures, whether padmasana, siddhasana, or the thunderbolt posture and see how you.

If you find you can't even get into the posture, let alone sit in them easily, it should be apparent that you have quite a lot of work to do.

But the weakminded will always make excuses, and making excuses they will never get anywhere.

If you don't take it seriously and waste your life in idle chatter, that's all you'll ever achieve.

Mumon trained hard, travelled from temple to temple working in the fields, and spent a great deal of time working on the K'ung An given to him.

Likewise, upon attaining mastery, he trained his students as well.

If you can find a single Chan or Zen master that didn't follow this pattern, by all means, let me know.

I know of not one that did not seek out a good teacher and train with great diligence.

Unless you go and do the work for yourself, it's unlikely you'll ever understand why it's done. If you tremble in fear at the thought of all the years you've wasted when you could have been training, if your bowels turn to water when you think that there might be a great deal more to it than what you've experienced, and if you remain mired in bad habits and false views, you'll never understand just how much there is to it all and die without ever realising it.

Life is precious, the moment of death uncertain, don't waste your life in vain.

Seek out a good teacher and train with great diligence while you still have the chance.

Take good care of yourselves.

Submitted June 16, 2019 at 07:28AM by TheSolarian http://bit.ly/2XdSg3b