At first, I would like to remind you the lineage, even though I'm pretty sure most of you are already familiar with it. Baizhang Huaihai, the disciple of Mazu Daoyi, was the master of Huangbo Xiyun, the latter one was the master of Linji Yixuan, and so on.
Now let me provide a few quotes from Baizhang Huaihai, where he mentioned the ten stages of bodhisattvas:
From entering the stream all the way up to the tenth and highest stage of bodhisattvahood...
Even people of the tenth stage cannot escape completely, and flow into the river of birth and death.
“Human” symbolizes the bodhisattvas of the highest, tenth stage...
There are actually several more mentions of the ten stages, and several other links and quotes from "The ten stages sutra" (like mentioned stream entering), which is a part of Avatamsaka Sutra (Cleary's translation of it is available on amazon). And in this Sutra there are several mentions of bodhisattvas practice, which is, at some point...
Enlightening beings in this stage of Refulgence leave desires and evil and unwholesome things for the sake of realization of the Teaching and its practical application: with thought and reflection, becoming aloof, joyful and blissful, they attain the first stage of meditation and abide there.
By cessation of thought and reflection, inner purity, and mastery of single-mindedness, free from thought and cogitation, concentrated, joyful and blissful, they attain and abide in the second stage of meditation.
By freedom from desire for joy they abide in equanimity; with mindfulness and precise knowledge, they experience physical bliss: as the sages say, those who are dispassionate, mindful, blissful, and detached from joy attain to and abide in the third stage of meditation.
By the abandonment of pleasure and pain, and by the disappearance of former joy and dejection, free from both pleasure and pain, equanimous, with pure mindfulness, they attain to and abide in the fourth stage of meditation.
By transcendence of all perceptions of form, by disappearance of all perceptions of objects, by not placing the attention on various perceptions, they attain to and abide in the realm of infinity of space, aware of infinite space.
Totally transcending the realm of infinity of space, they attain to and abide in the realm of infinity of consciousness, aware of boundless consciousness.
By totally transcending the realm of infinity of consciousness, they attain to and abide in the realm of nothingness, aware of the absence of anything at all.
Totally transcending the realm of nothingness, they attain to and abide in the realm of neither perception nor nonperception.
This is done on a basis not of enjoyment, but only for the purpose of accomplishment of practical application of the Teaching.
This is clearly jhanas meditation - absorptions in four realms of form and four formless realms. If somebody still thinks that Huangbo Xiyun and Linji Yixuan haven't mastered it, or even rejected it - well, nobody can forbid one to think so. I believe they only taught us to not stuck in it and move on.
Submitted May 19, 2020 at 02:10AM by mojo-power https://ift.tt/2LIctXe
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