Anderl, Patriarch's Hall: Mazu's Brick - The Brickening

Anderl's 祖堂集 Zutang ji, Patriarch's Hall Collection, https://terebess.hu/zen/Zutangji.html

Preceptor Ma[zü] sat at one place in meditation when Preceptor Räng took a brick and rubbed it on the stone in front [of him].

Master Mä[zü] said: "What are you doing'?" The master said: "I polish a brick and make a mirror. Master Mä said: "How can you possibly make a mirror by polishing a brick'?" The master said: "If by polishing a brick it does not become a mirror, how can one become a Buddha by sitting in meditation.'

Master Mä said: "What is the right thing to do then ?

The master said: "If a person drives a carriage, and the carriage does not move, is it right to hit the carriage or is it right to hit the ox'?"

The master said furthermore: "Do you study how to sit in meditation , or do you study how to become a Buddha? If you study to sit in [dhyana], [dhyana] is neither sitting nor lying down. If you study to become a Buddha, Buddha is not a fixed mark (characteristic).

One cannot dwell in the dharma, it cannot be grasped or rejected, how can you do this [kind of practice]'? If you become a Buddha it is like killing the Buddha. If you grasp the mark of sitting (in meditation), this is not the principle of liberation. '

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(Welcome link) (ewk^who?) note: The body is the carriage, the mind is the ox. How can you get the ox to move by beating the body-carriage with a sitting meditation whip?

We hear this all the time from Dogen Buddhists and LSD poppers... to move the ox, you must beat the carriage. You must beat the carriage with this special posture and method. Or drugs.

No wonder their minds don't move.

Then, they hear some Zen talk, they see oxes getting whipped, and they panic! Because it turns out all the time, they wanted to kill the ox. They wanted to pacify it do death. That's their idea of virtue. An ox that doesn't do @#$#. Then they'll whip out their ten ox herding pictures and say, see, an ox that is obedient, not dead.

Well, tomato potato.

One brick hits their ox on the head and it's game on.

Submitted June 18, 2020 at 05:53PM by ewk https://ift.tt/3hGYXlK