Monday, 3 February 2020

Faith in Mind, Second Excerpt

When you try to stop activity to achieve quietude,

your very effort fills you with activity.

As long as you remain attached to one extreme or another

you will never know Oneness.

Richard B. Clarke


When activity is stopped and passivity obtains,

This passivity is again the state of activity.

Remaining in movement or quiescence,

How shall we know the One?

R. H. Blyth


Mind moves, you return it to stillness,

but thus stilled, it moves all the more.

While you persist in two extremes,

how can you understand unity?

Burton Watson


The religious zeal towards cultivating passivity, quietude, or non-action is exemplified in with Shenxiu's Dogen's obsession with polishing the "dusty mirror".

As a point of contrast Nanyue, on encountering Mazu, immediately demonstrated the futility by means of polishing his brick.

Setting aside the vacillation between passivity and activity, where can the Buddha be seen?



Submitted February 04, 2020 at 03:38AM by ThatKir https://ift.tt/2SjjqRy

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