It's late for me, but as I was reading the introduction to "Sun-Face Buddha: The Teachings of Ma-tsu and the Hung-chou School of Ch'an" (introduced and translated by Cheng Chien Bhikshu), I couldn't help but feel that the discussion was very relevant to some of the discussion we've had here recently concerning the validity of meditation (which u/ewk has a wiki page devoted to, but which none of the meditation-based critics seems to think is enough) and I thought that it was worth sharing. Forgive me for using the author's interpretations of a Zen Master's words instead of quotes directly from a Zen Master, but the conceptual elaboration might be helpful to some people in getting at some of the quotes in my opinion. Also, in a bid to not omit any potentially useful information to those who aren't very familiar with the terminology and scripture that Zen utilises, this is a rather long extract.
The practice of sitting in meditation and the connection with the Lankavatara Sutra are traditionally considered to be the two main characteristics of the Northern school that are said to stand in sharp contrast to the rejection of sitting meditation and a reliance on the Diamond Sutra by the Southern school. However, the surviving texts that contain the teachings of the Northern school bear very little reference to the Lankavatara, which seems to suggest that the sutra was not very much used by the Northern school. It is also not certain if Hui-neng really championed the Diamond Sutra, or whether that was another of Shen-hsiu's inventions; what is most likely is that instead of completely rejecting any form of meditation practice, Hui-neng criticized the view that enlightenment can be attained by meditation, which by no means implies that meditation is not useful in preparing the conditions that are necessary to bring about the experience of sudden enlightenment.
[...]
The story of Huai-jang's meeting with the Sixth Patriarch is recorded in the Transmission of the Lamp as follows:
The Patriarch asked him, "Where are you coming from?
The Master (i.e Huai-jang) said, "I am coming from Sung Mountain."
The Patriarch asked, "What is it that has come?"
The Master said, "To speak of it as something does not reach it."
The Patriarch asked, "Can that be cultivated or testified to?"
The master said, "It is not impossible to cultivate it or to testify to it, it is only that it cannot be defiled. " The Patriarch said, "It is this very thing that cannot be defiled what all the Buddhas guard and think of. You are thus, and so am I. The Patriarch Prajnatara of India had made a prophecy that from beneath your feet a horse will appear that will stamp to death the people in the world. Keep this in your mind; you don't have to speak of it soon."
The Master's mind opened and he understood [the Patriarch's] meaning."
[...]
The philosophical foundation of Ma-tsu's teaching is mainly based on the tathagatagarbha doctrine. The scriptural support of the tathagatagarbha teaching can be found in such texts as the Srimala, the Tathagatagarbha, the Surangama, and the Perfect Enlightenment Sutras, as well as the Avatamsaka Sutra, especially its "Appearance of the Tathagata" chapter, and in the Ramagotravibhaga, which is the only extant Indian sastra which gives more detailed treatment to this influential doctrine. The tathagatagarbha is also found in the Lankavatara Sutra and the Awakening of Faith, but in these two texts it is combined with the Yogacara doctrine of alyanavijnana. The tathagatagarbha doctrine represents a tendency in Buddhism to describe reality in more positive terms. The tathagatagarbha, which is sometimes translated as the "womb of Buddhahood," is conceived of as an indestructible essence present in all sentient beings which is the cause for both the ultimate reality and the realm of phenomenal appearances. This essence, or "seed," is described as being neither existent nor non-existent. It is the suchness of things, or when spoken of in more apophatic terms, their emptiness.
The tathagatagarbha doctrine alleges that all living beings are endowed with the True Mind, which is fundamentally enlightened and pure by nature, and is only adventitiously covered with defilements. In his Ch'an-yuan chuch'uan-chi tu hsu (Preface to the Collection of all Explanations on the Source of Ch'an) Tsung-mi explains the tathagatagarbha doctrine in the following manner:
This teaching says that all sentient beings posses the true mind of emptiness and quiescence, whose nature is without inception fundamentally pure. Bright, unobscured, astute and constantly aware, it constantly abides to the end of time. It is called Buddha-nature; it is also called tathagatagarbha and mind-ground. [Because] from time without beginning it has been concealed by false thoughts, [sentient beings] cannot realize it, and thereby experience birth and death. The Supremely Enlightened, feeling pity for them, manifests in the world to proclaim that all dharmas characterized by birth and death are empty, and to reveal the complete identity of this mind with all the Buddhas.
This True Mind has also been described by Huang-po Hsi-yun (d. 850), who is traditionally regarded as Ma-tsu's grandson in the Dharma, as follows:
This mind has from the very beginning been independent of birth and death. It is neither green nor yellow, without form and characteristics. It does not belong to either existence or nothingness, and it cannot be reckoned as either young or old. It is neither long nor short, neither large nor small. It transcends all limitations, words, and traces. It is just this very thing-if you stir a thought, you miss it. It is like empty space, without limits, beyond conceptualization. It is only this One Mind that is Buddha, and Buddha is not different from sentient beings.
While in its essence the True Mind, or the Buddha-nature, is beyond thoughts and is devoid of any signs, in response to things it can manifest itself in a variety of ways. It is this dynamic aspect of the True Mind that is of paramount importance to Ma-tsu, according to whom the realization of this mind, and thereby enlightenment, is to be achieved through recognizing it in its function. So, the Way is not some abstract metaphysical principle: our very words, thoughts, and actions are its function. Reality is not to be sought apart from daily life. Reality is present in everything-is everything-and it is only due to our ignorance that we fail to realize this. Therefore, "all living beings have since beginningless kalpas been abiding in the samadhi of the Dharma-nature," and all ordinary activities are the Dharma-nature. As Ma-tsu is quoted by Yung-ming Yen-shou (904-975) in his Tsung-ching lu (Record of the Mirror of the Teaching): "If you wish to know your mind, this very one that is talking now is your mind. This is what is called the Buddha, and is the true dharmakaya of the Buddha, and is also called the Way."
However, due to beings "not knowing how to return to the source, they follow names and attach to forms, from which confusing emotions and falsehood arise, thereby creating all kinds of karma." It follows that "ignorance is to be ignorant of one's original mind," and enlightenment consist in simply "awakening to one's original nature.''
Since the True Mind is already present in all beings, it is not something to be approached through cultivation, which implies a process of gradual progress through stages, and inevitably leads to dualistic thinking which is the very cause of ignorance. And yet, the painfully obvious fact of our ignorance and suffering makes it plain that there is need for some form of cultivation. "To attach to original purity and original liberation, to consider oneself to be a Buddha, to be someone who understands Ch'an, that belongs to the way of those heretics who deny cause and effect, and hold that things happen spontaneously," says Ma-tsu's disciple Pai-chang Huai-hai (749-814). Ma-tsu himself points that "if one says that there is no need for cultivation,'then that is same as ordinary [ignorant] people." While the Way is not to be approached through cultivation, its realization is not outside of cultivation.
Cultivation, as Ma-tsu sees it, consists of not defiling our true nature. The defilements that are referred to are the mental tendencies of bifurcating reality into conflicting opposites of good and bad, right and wrong, worldly and holy; the defilements consist in thinking in dualistic terms and acting in contrived ways, in creating all kinds of views and opinions, desires and attachments, and regarding all of them as real. So, instead of trying to remove defilements which are themselves illusory, one has simply to realize their empty nature. This realization is correlated with letting go, which interrupts the habitual pattern of conceptual proliferation and lets the brightness of the original nature manifest itself.
TL;DR: '"To attach to original purity and original liberation, to consider oneself to be a Buddha, to be someone who understands Ch'an, that belongs to the way of those heretics who deny cause and effect, and hold that things happen spontaneously," says Ma-tsu's disciple Pai-chang Huai-hai (749-814). Ma-tsu himself points that "if one says that there is no need for cultivation,'then that is same as ordinary [ignorant] people." While the Way is not to be approached through cultivation, its realization is not outside of cultivation.'
Submitted May 15, 2020 at 06:16AM by RickleTickle69 https://ift.tt/3cylj63
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