Sudden Enlightenment, Further Cultivation

1. Master Guishan said to an assembly,

The mind of people of the Way is simple and direct, without falsehood, without opposition, without inclination, without deceptive mental activity. At all times seeing and hearing are normal. There are no further details. Also one does not shut the eyes or close the ears—as long as feelings do not stick to things, that will do. The sages since time immemorial have just spoken of the problems of impurity; if you don’t have so much false consciousness, subjective views and conceptual habits, you are clear and calm as autumn waters, pure, without contrivance, tranquil, free from obstruction. That is called a Wayfarer, and also called someone with no issues.

At that time a monk asked, “Is there any further cultivation for someone who is suddenly enlightened?” Guishan said, “If one has truly realized the fundamental, that is when one knows for oneself. Cultivation and no cultivation are a dualism. Now though a beginner attain total sudden realization of inherent truth from conditions, there is still the habit energy of beginningless ages which one cannot clear away all at once. It is necessary to teach that person to clean away the currently active streaming consciousness. This is cultivation, but it doesn’t mean there is a special doctrine to teach one to practice or aim for. Gaining access to truth from hearing, when the truth heard is profound, the immaculate mind is inherently complete and illumined, and does not abide in the realm of delusion. Even if there are a hundred thousand subtle meanings according to the times, this is getting a seat, wearing clothes, and knowing how to live on your own. Essentially speaking, the noumenal ground of reality does not admit a single particle, while the ways of Buddhist service do not abandon a single method. If you enter directly at a single stroke, then the sense of ordinary and holy ends, the substance of being is revealed, real and eternal; noumenon and phenomena are not separate. This is the Buddha of thusness as such.

Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching, Dahui, Thomas Cleary translation

Submitted June 08, 2019 at 07:38AM by kamasii http://bit.ly/2Ww3ArU