WOah boy! Weed practice is not for everyone ... but it is for me! And I had a lot of fun writing this ... but man did it blow up on me.
What's below is what I first intended as a response to /u/heretical_shavepate's OP, "You Are Already Enlightened", but it got too large for the character limit so I decided to OP it up.
However, that's how this should be redd: as a response to this article of the same name written by GuoGu, ShengYen's right-hand man.
Whatever you're expecting it to say, I'm sure you're right.
XD
(And a sincere--believe it or not--token of appreciation to HereticalShavepate, GuoGu, and ShengYen for this practice opportunity; I enjoyed it and found it to be ... :::bites tongue::: ... "enlightening" hahaha)
This is great! Really makes it easy to shadow-box ShengYen while I hit my dab rig.
PREAMBLE:
Right out of the gate GuoGu says:
The Chan tradition does not usually refer to steps or stages. Its central teaching is that we are intrinsically awake; our mind is originally without abiding, fixations, and vexations, and its nature is without divisions and stages. This is the basis of the Chan view of sudden enlightenment. If our mind’s nature were not already free, that would imply we could become enlightened only after we practiced, which is not so. If it’s possible to gain enlightenment, then it’s possible to lose it as well.
Not a bad statement. Somehow though, he doesn't feel that it invalidates his entire article (much less his entire life's "practice") and so he goes on to say:
Consider a room, which is naturally spacious. However we organize the furniture in the room will not affect its intrinsic spaciousness. We can put up walls to divide the room, but they are temporary. And whether we leave the room clean or cluttered and messy, it won’t affect its natural spaciousness. Mind is also intrinsically spacious. Although we can get caught up in our desires and aversions, our true nature is not affected by those vexations. We are inherently free.
In the Chan tradition, therefore, practice is not about producing enlightenment. You might wonder, “Then what am I doing here, practicing?” Because practice does help clean up the “furniture” in the “room.” By not attaching to your thoughts, you remove the furniture, so to speak. And once your mind is clean, instead of fixating on the chairs, tables, and so on, you see its spaciousness. Then you can let the furniture be or rearrange it any way you want—not for yourself, but for the benefit of others in the room.
Did you catch it? Did you catch the slight of hand?
"Yeah, you don't need to practice ... buuuuttt ..." (and we're off to the races!)
As GuoGu says, "In the Chan tradition ... practice is not about producing enlightenment."
He then unabashedly poses the question; "You might wonder, 'Then what am I doing here, practicing?'"
Yeah GuoGu ... I am!
Because practice does help clean up the “furniture” in the “room.” By not attaching to your thoughts, you remove the furniture, so to speak. And once your mind is clean, instead of fixating on the chairs, tables, and so on, you see its spaciousness.
Right between "... practicing?'" and "Because ..." we slip from "our true nature is not affected by those vexations" and "practice is not about producing enlightenment" to "once your mind is clean, instead of fixating on the chairs, tables, and so on, you see its spaciousness."
In other words: "I know I just said that you're already 'enlightened' and 'free' ... but I didn't mean it; what I meant was that you actually have a mess in your room, and it's holding you back, so let's talk about cleaning up that room my guy!"
Um, excuse me ... What mess? What "room"??
We've also snuck in a "morality" here (cleanliness is apparently "beneficial") but I don't want to be too pedantic, I want to get to HuangBo.
And before I get Zen-splained that "actually, even though everyone is already enlightened, they are actually also deluded until they realize that they are enlightened and practices are a way to speed things up" ... then what is enlightenment then? "Realizing that you never had a mess to clean up in the first place"? So ... "clean up that mess that you don't have ... so that you can realize that you never had it"?
As FoYan said: "Who can understand this affair of yours?"
Thankfully, HuangBo's clarity is the real deal:
You people go on misunderstanding; you hold to concepts such as "ordinary" and "Enlightened", directing your thoughts outwards where they gallop about like horses! All this amounts to beclouding your own minds! So I tell you "Mind is the Buddha."
[But] as soon as thought or sensation arises, you fall into dualism.
Beginningless time and the present moment are the same. There is no "this" and no "that".
To understand this truth is called "complete and unexcelled Enlightenment".
...
I assure you that all things have been free from bondage since the very beginning. So why attempt to explain them? Why attempt to purify what has never been defiled?
Therefore it is written: "The Absolute is thusness"; how can it be discussed?
You people still conceive of Mind as existing or not existing, as pure or defiled, as something to be studied in the way that one studies a piece of categorical knowledge, or as a concept—any of these definitions is sufficient to throw you back into the endless round of birth and death.
The person who "perceives things" always wants to identify them, to get a hold on them.
Those who use their minds like eyes in this way are sure to suppose that progress is a matter of stages.
If you are that kind of person, you are as far from the truth as earth is far from heaven. Why this talk of "seeing into your own nature"?
[1]
ShengYen and GuoGu:
The ultimate way to practice silent illumination is to sit without dependence on your eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, or mind. You sit without abiding anywhere, fabricating anything, or falling into a stupor. You neither enter into meditative absorption nor give rise to scattered thoughts. In this very moment, mind just is— wakeful and still, clear and without delusion. However, for many practitioners, such a standard can prove too high.
...
As Master Sheng Yen’s personal attendant monk, I was one of his first students to begin following his method of silent illumination as my main practice. He would often use me as a guinea pig: I would report to him whatever state or experience I was going through as I went deeper into the practice. I practiced silent illumination under his guidance for about sixteen years, until I began using the huatou or gong’an (koan in Japanese) method.
HuangBo:
[T]he result [of "transcending conceptual thought"] is a state of being: there is no pious practicing and no action of realizing.
That there is nothing which can be attained is not idle talk; it is the truth.
Moreover, whether you accomplish your aim in a single flash of thought or after going through the Ten Stages of a Bodhisattva's Progress, the achievement will be the same; for this state of being admits of no degrees, so the latter method merely entails aeons of unnecessary suffering and toil.
...
[People] suppose that there is something to be attained or realized apart from Mind, and thereupon they use Mind to seek the Dharma, not knowing that Mind and the object of their search are one. Mind cannot be used to seek something from Mind ...
Such [methods as theirs] are not to be compared with suddenly eliminating conceptual thought, which is the fundamental Dharma.
...
Though you study how to attain the Three Grades of Bodhisattvahood, the Four Grades of Sainthood, and the Ten Stages of a Bodhisattva's Progress to Enlightenment until your mind is full of them, you will merely be balancing yourself between "ordinary" and "Enlightened".
Not to see that all "methods" of "following the Way" are ephemeral is samsāric Dharma.
...
It is because you are not [a] sort of person [like Bodhidharma] that you insist on a thorough study of the methods established by people of old for gaining knowledge on the conceptual level.
...
Only avoid conceptual thoughts, which lead to becoming and cessation, to the afflictions of the sentient world and all the rest; then you will have no need of "methods of Enlightenment" and suchlike.
...
If you know positively that all sentient beings are already one with Bodhi, you will cease thinking of Bodhi as something to be attained. You may recently have heard others talking about this "attaining of the Bodhi-Mind", but this may be called an intellectual way of driving the Buddha away! By following this method, you only appear to achieve Buddhahood ...
...
Since Mind is the Buddha, it embraces all things, from the Buddhas at one extreme to the meanest of belly-crawling reptiles or insects at the other. All these alike share the Buddha-Nature and all are of the substance of the One Mind.
So, after his arrival from the West, Bodhidharma transmitted naught but the Dharma of the One Mind.
He pointed directly to the truth that all sentient beings have always been of one substance with the Buddha.
He did not follow any of those mistaken "methods of attainment"; and if you could only achieve this comprehension of your own Mind, thereby discovering your real nature, there would assuredly be nothing for you to seek, either.
...
Though others may talk of the Way of the Buddhas as something to be reached by various pious practices ... you must have nothing to do with such ideas.
A perception, sudden as blinking, that subject and object are one, will lead to a deeply mysterious wordless understanding; and by this understanding will you awake to the truth of Zen.
[Do not be taken in by people who do not understand Zen; though such a person] may be delighted by his discovery of some "way to Enlightenment", if you allow yourselves to be persuaded by him, you will experience no delight at all, but suffer both sorrow and disappointment.
What have such thoughts as his to do with the study of Zen?
Even if you do obtain from him some trifling "method", it will only be a thought-constructed dharma having nothing to do with Zen.
Thus, Bodhidharma sat rapt in meditation before a wall; he did not seek to lead people into having opinions.
Therefore it is written: "To put out of mind even the principle from which action springs is the true teaching of the Buddhas, while dualism belongs to the sphere of demons."
...
If you disciples cannot get beyond those incorrect orthodox teachings, why do you call yourselves Zen monks?
I exhort you to apply yourselves solely to Zen and not to go seeking after wrong methods which only result in a multiplicity of concepts.
A person drinking water knows well enough if it is cold or warm.
Whether you be walking or sitting, you must restrain all discriminatory thoughts from one moment to the next.
If you do not, you will never escape the chain of rebirth.
[2]
ShengYen and GuoGu:
The stages of silent illumination as taught by Sheng Yen are not set in stone. They are a means to an end and signposts.
...
The practice of silent illumination taught by Master Sheng Yen can roughly be divided into three stages: concentrated mind, unified mind, and no-mind. Within each stage are infinite depths. You need not go through all the stages, nor are they necessarily sequential.
HuangBo:
Anything possessing any signs is illusory. It is by perceiving that all signs are no signs that you perceive the Tathāgata.
...
In reality, [the true] Dharma is neither preached in words nor otherwise signified.
...
To practice the six pāramitās and a myriad similar practices with the intention of becoming a Buddha thereby is to advance by stages, but the Ever-Existent Buddha is not a Buddha of stages.
Only awake to the One Mind, and there is nothing whatsoever to be attained.
...
Our original Buddha-Nature is, in highest truth, devoid of any atom of objectivity.
It is void, omnipresent, silent, pure; it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy—and that is all.
Enter deeply into it by awaking to it yourself.
That which is before you is it, in all its fullness, utterly complete.
There is naught beside.
Even if you go through all the stages of a Bodhisattva's progress towards Buddhahood, one by one; when at last, in a single flash, you attain to full realization, you will only be realizing the Buddha-Nature which has been with you all the time; and by all the foregoing stages you will have added to it nothing at all.
You will come to look upon those aeons of work and achievement as no better than unreal actions performed in a dream.
That is why the Tathāgata said: "I truly attained nothing from complete, unexcelled Enlightenment."
...
Enlightenment springs from Mind, regardless of your practice of the six pāramitās and the rest.
All such practices are merely expedients for handling "concrete" matters when dealing with the problems of daily life.
Even "Enlightenment", the "Absolute", "Reality", "Sudden Attainment", the "Dharmakāya" and all the others down to the "Ten Stages of Progress", the "Four Rewards of virtuous and wise living" and the "State of Holiness and Wisdom" are—every one of them—mere concepts for helping us through saṁsāra; they have nothing to do with the real Buddha-Mind.
[3]
ShengYen and GuoGu:
CONCENTRATED MIND
The first stage of practice is learning to sit in an uncontrived way, not trying to get this or get rid of that. You just sit with clarity and simplicity in the moment.
...
To just sit is to be aware that you are sitting. ... “Just sitting” means, at the very least, you know clearly that the whole body is there. ... The idea is to be aware of the general totality of your sitting experience.
...
This method does not involve contemplating, observing thoughts, or continually scanning the body. Instead, it involves minding the act of sitting, staying with that reality from moment to moment to moment. When you mind your sitting, your body and mind are naturally together. You don’t watch the body or imagine it, as if you’re looking in from the outside, which is some kind of mental construct.
...
Getting to know and learning to relax your body can free you from habitual tendencies and negative emotions. You may notice that when wandering thoughts arise, some parts of your body tense up. The same is true for deep-seated emotions, which are lodged in particular places of the body. Often, people live their lives in such a way that their bodies and minds are split; they do one thing with their bodies while their minds are elsewhere. Practicing this first stage helps body and mind be more unified.
...
Your discriminating mind lessens because you’re aware of the totality of the body as you are sitting.
...
The concentration developed in the first stage of silent illumination is not a one-pointed focus of mind but an open, natural, and clear presence. It is concentration accompanied by wisdom.
HuangBo:
Attach yourselves to nothing beyond the pure Buddha-Nature which is the original source of all things.
Suppose you were to adorn the empty sky with countless jewels, how could they remain in position?
The Buddha-Nature is like the empty sky; though you were to adorn it with inestimable merit and wisdom, how could they remain there?
They would only serve to conceal its original Nature and to render it invisible.
...
That which is called the "Mirror of Concentration and Wisdom" requires the use of sight, hearing, feeling and cognition, which lead to successive states of calm and agitation. But these involve conceptions based on environmental objects; they are [merely] temporary expedients appertaining to one of the lower categories of "roots of goodness".
And this category of "roots of goodness" merely enables people to understand what is said to them.
If you wish to experience Enlightenment yourselves, you must not indulge in such conceptions.
They are all environmental Dharmas concerning things which are and things which are not, based on existence and non-existence. If only you will avoid concepts of existence and non-existence in regard to absolutely everything, you will then perceive the [true] Dharma.
...
[And] where no feeling arises, who can say that you are right?
...
Knowing that in truth not a single thing exists which can be attained is called "sitting in a bodhimandala."
A bodhimandala is a state in which no concepts arise, in which you awaken to the intrinsic voidness of phenomena, also called "the utter voidness of the Womb of Tathāgatas."
...
Bodhi is [not really a] state. The Buddha did not attain to it. Sentient beings do not lack it. It cannot be reached with the body nor sought with the mind. All sentient beings are already of one form with Bodhi.
...
Bodhi is not something to be attained. If, at this very moment, you could convince yourselves of its unattainability, being certain indeed that nothing at all can ever be attained, you would already be Bodhi-minded.
Since Bodhi is not a state, it is nothing for you to attain.
...
[Even if] we were all to strain our minds trying to discover a means of liberation, that would be no way to fathom the wisdom and omniscience by which the Buddhas transcend all space.
There can be no argument about it.
Once when Gautama had measured out three thousand chiliochosms, a Bodhisattva suddenly appeared and passed over them in a single stride.
Yet even that prodigious stride failed to cover the width of one pore of Samantabhadra's skin!
Now, what sort of mental attainments have you that will help you to study the meaning of that?
[4]
ShengYen and GuoGu:
UNIFIED MIND
When your discriminating mind diminishes, your narrow sense of self diminishes as well. Your field of awareness—which is at first the totality of the body—naturally opens up to include the external environment. Inside and outside become one. In the beginning, you may still notice that a sound is coming from a certain direction or that your mind follows distinct events within the environment, such as someone moving. But as you continue, these distinctions fade. You are aware of events around you, but they do not leave traces. You no longer feel that the environment is out there and you are in here. The environment poses no opposition or burden. It just is. If you are sitting, then the environment is you, sitting. If you have left your seat and are walking about, then the environment is still you, in all of your actions. This experience, the second stage of silent illumination, is called the oneness of self and others.
...
There is an intimacy with everything around you that is beyond words and descriptions. When you urinate, the body, urine, and toilet are not separate. Indeed, you all have a wonderful dialogue!
...
It’s not that you think, “They are part of me and I’m really big! I include the whole world!” Nor is it that you dissolve into the external environment, not knowing who you are anymore. It is just that the sense of self-reference is diminished and the burdens of normal vexations have temporarily vanished.
...
At this point, three subtler experiences may occur, all related to the sense of great self. The first is infinite light. The light is you, and you experience a sense of oneness, infinity, and clarity.
The second experience is infinite sound. This is not the sound of cars, dogs, or something similar. Nor is it like music or anything else you have ever heard. It is a primordial, elemental sound that is one with the experience of vastness. It is harmonious in all places, without reference or attribution.
The third experience is voidness. But this is not the emptiness of self-nature or of no-self that would constitute enlightenment. This is a spacious voidness in which there is nothing but the pure vastness of space. Although you do not experience a sense of self, a subtle form of self and object still exists.
These progressively deeper states are all related to samadhi states. When you emerge from them, you must try not to think about them anymore because they are quite alluring. Say to yourself, “This state is ordinary; it’s not it.” Otherwise, it will lead to another form of attachment.
...
(In the later phase of the second stage, you may even think you are enlightened because the deeper levels of oneness are so profound. Practitioners sometimes think they have suddenly become smarter or understood all the scriptures.) XD
...
All these states of clarity are wonderful; they give you a strong conviction in the usefulness of buddhadharma and the possibility of a state free from vexations. However, they still do not represent the clarity of the third stage—the realization of silent illumination. Become attached to any of these states and you will be further from them. All of them must be let go.
HuangBo:
That Nature and your perception of it are one. You cannot use it to see something over and above itself.
That Nature and your hearing of it are one. You cannot use it to hear something over and above itself.
If you form a concept of the true nature of anything as being visible or audible, you allow a dharma of distinction to arise.
Let me repeat that the perceived cannot perceive.
Can there, I ask you, be a head attached to the crown of your head?
I will give you an example to make my meaning clearer: Imagine some loose pearls in a bowl, some large globules and some small. Each one is completely unaware of the others and none causes the least obstruction to the rest.
During their formation, they did not say: "Now I am coming into being": and when they begin to decay, they will not say: "Now I am decaying."
None of the beings born into the six forms of life through the four kinds of birth are exceptions to this rule.
Buddhas and sentient creatures have no mutual perception of each other.
...
The term "unity" refers to a homogeneous spiritual brilliance which separates into six harmoniously blended elements.
The homogeneous spiritual brilliance is the One Mind, while the six harmoniously blended elements are the six sense organs.
These six sense organs become severally united with objects that defile them—the eyes with form, the ear with sound, the nose with smell, the tongue with taste, the body with touch, and the thinking mind with entities.
Between these organs and their objects arise the six sensory perceptions, making eighteen sense-realms in all.
If you understand that these eighteen realms have no objective existence, you will bind the six harmoniously blended elements into a single spiritual brilliance—a single spiritual brilliance which is the One Mind.
All students of the Way know this, but cannot avoid forming concepts of "a single spiritual brilliance" and "the six harmoniously blended elements".
Accordingly they are chained to entities and fail to achieve a tacit understanding of Original Mind.
...
Hence all dharmas such as those purporting to lead to the attainment of Bodhi possess no reality.
The words of Gautama Buddha were intended merely as efficacious expedients for leading men out of the darkness of worse ignorance. It was as though one pretended yellow leaves were gold to stop the flow of a child's tears.
"Samyak-Sambodhi" is another name for the realization that there are no valid Dharmas.
Once you understand this, of what use are such trifles to you?
According harmoniously with the conditions of your present lives, you should go on, as opportunities arise ...
...
That which is called the "Doctrine of Mental Origins" postulates that all things are built up in Mind and that they manifest themselves upon contact with external environment, ceasing to be manifest when that environment is not present. But it is wrong to conceive of an environment separate from the pure, unvarying nature of all things.
...
Ordinary people all indulge in conceptual thought based on environmental phenomena, hence they feel desire and hatred.
To eliminate environmental phenomena, just put an end to your conceptual thinking. When this ceases, environmental phenomena are void; and when these are void, thought ceases.
But if you try to eliminate environment without first putting a stop to conceptual thought, you will not succeed, but merely increase its power to disturb you.
Thus all things are naught but Mind—intangible Mind; so what can you hope to attain?
...
People are often hindered by environmental phenomena from perceiving Mind, and by individual events from perceiving underlying principles; so they often try to escape from environmental phenomena in order to still their minds, or to obscure events in order to retain their grasp of principles.
They do not realize that this is merely to obscure phenomena with Mind; events with principles.
Just let your minds become void and environmental phenomena will void themselves; let principles cease to stir and events will cease stirring of themselves.
...
Many people are afraid to empty their minds lest they may plunge into the Void. They do not know that their own Mind is the void.
The ignorant eschew phenomena but not thought; the wise eschew thought but not phenomena.
...
What sort of mind could I tell you to see in an objective environment?
Even if you could see it, it would only be Mind reflected in an objective sphere.
You would be like a person looking at their face in a mirror; though you could distinguish your features in it clearly, you would still be looking at a mere reflection.
What bearing has this on the affair that brought you to me?
...
[W]hen the moment of understanding comes, do not think in terms of understanding, not understanding or not not-understanding, for none of these is something to be grasped.
...
As for those people who seek to grasp it through the application of some particular principle or by creating a special environment, or through some scripture, or doctrine, or age, or time, or name, or word, or through their six senses—how do they differ from wooden dolls?
[The void is neither bright nor dark.] Both terms are dualistic. [The Void] is at once neither bright nor dark; and by "the non-bright" is just meant that Original Brightness which is above the distinction made between bright and dark.
Just this one sentence is enough to give most people a headache!
That is why we say the world is full of vexations arising from the transitory phenomena around us.
[5]
ShengYen and GuoGu:
NO-SELF, NO-MIND
The clarity of the second stage is like looking through a spotless window. You can see through it very well, almost as if the window were not there, but it is there. In the second stage, the self lies dormant but subtle self-grasping is present. In other words, seeing through a window, even a very clean one, is not the same as seeing through no window at all. Seeing through no window is one way of describing the state of enlightenment, which is the third stage. In utter clarity, the mind is unmoving. Why? Because there is no self-referential mind.
The third stage of silent illumination is the realization of quiescence and wakefulness, stillness and awareness, samadhi and prajna, all of which are different ways to describe mind’s natural state. Experiencing it for the first time is like suddenly dropping a thousand pounds from your shoulders—the heavy burdens of self-attachment, vexations, and habitual tendencies. Prior to that, you may not know exactly what self-attachment or vexations are. But once you are free from them, you clearly recognize them.
...
By practicing in this way, our life gradually becomes completely integrated with wisdom and compassion, and even traces of “enlightenment” vanish. We are able to offer ourselves to everyone, like a lighthouse, helping all those who come our way, responding to their needs without contrivance. This is the perfection of silent illumination.
...
Remember that practice is much more than following a particular method or going through stages on a path. Practice is life and all of its “furniture.” Practice helps us see the room and not attach to the furniture. Enlightenment is not something special—it is the natural freedom of this moment, here and now, unstained by our fabrications.
HuangBo:
[The fundamental] Dharma is Mind, beyond which there is no Dharma; and this Mind is the Dharma, beyond which there is no mind.
Mind in itself is not mind, yet neither is it no-mind.
To say that Mind is no-mind implies something existent.
Let there be a silent understanding and no more. Away with all thinking and explaining!
Then we may say that the Way of Words has been cut off and movements of the mind eliminated.
This Mind is the pure Buddha-Source inherent in all people.
All wriggling beings possessed of sentient life and all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are of this one substance and do not differ.
Differences arise from wrong-thinking only and lead to the creation of all kinds of karma.
...
Ordinary people look to their surroundings, while followers of the Way look to Mind, but the true Dharma is to forget them both.
The former is easy enough, the latter very difficult.
People are afraid to forget their minds, fearing to fall through the Void with nothing to stay their fall. They do not know that the Void is not really void, but the realm of the real Dharma.
This spiritually enlightening nature is without beginning, as ancient as the Void, subject neither to birth nor to destruction, neither existing nor not existing, neither impure nor pure, neither clamorous nor silent, neither old nor young, occupying no space, having neither inside nor outside, size nor form, colour nor sound.
It cannot be looked for or sought, comprehended by wisdom or knowledge, explained in words, contacted materially or reached by meritorious achievement.
All the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, together with all wriggling things possessed of life, share in this great Nirvāņic nature.
This nature is Mind; Mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the Dharma.
Any thought apart from this truth is entirely a wrong thought.
You cannot use Mind to seek Mind, the Buddha to seek the Buddha, or the Dharma to seek the Dharma.
...
By "mercy" is really meant not conceiving of a Buddha to be Enlightened, while "compassion" really means not conceiving of sentient beings to be delivered.
...
There are in reality no sentient beings to be delivered ... . If even self has no objective existence, how much less has other-than-self?
Thus, neither Buddha nor sentient beings exist objectively.
...
From the days when Bodhidharma first transmitted naught but the One Mind, there has been no other valid Dharma.
Pointing to the identity of Mind and the Buddha, he demonstrated how the highest forms of Enlightenment could be transcended. Assuredly he left no other thought but this.
If you wish to enter by the gate of our sect, this must be your only Dharma.
If you expect to gain anything from teachers of other doctrines, what is your purpose in coming here?
So it is said that if you have the merest intention to indulge in conceptual thinking, behold, your very intention will place you in the clutch of demons.
Similarly, a conscious lack of such intention, or even a consciousness that you do not have no such intention, will be sufficient to deliver you into the demons' power.
But they will not be demons from outside; they will be the self-creations of your own mind.
The only reality is that "Bodhisattva" whose existence is totally un-manifested even in a spiritual sense—the Trackless One.
If ever you should allow yourselves to believe in the more than purely transitory existence of phenomena, you will have fallen into a grave error known as the heretical belief in eternal life; but if, on the contrary, you take the intrinsic voidness of phenomena to imply mere emptiness, then you will have fallen into another error, the heresy of total extinction.
And finally, I just need to point out...
We started with this:
In the Chan tradition, therefore, practice is not about producing enlightenment.
And ended with this:
Seeing through no window is one way of describing the state of enlightenment, which is the third stage.
And this:
[P]ractitioners must work hard to experience enlightenment again and again until they can simply rest in mind’s natural state.
And this:
You might ask, “I’ve been practicing for ten years now—exactly when is this going to happen to me?”
The difference between delusion and enlightenment is only a moment away. In an instant, you can be free from the constructs of your identity and see through the veil of your fabrications.
Well, not only is this practice clearly a method for producing enlightenment (whether GuoGu had outed himself or not), but he also makes the absurd claim that "practitioners must work hard to experience enlightenment again and again".
HuangBo:
[T]here are no valid Dharmas. Once you understand this, of what use are such trifles to you?
Moreover, "Mind cannot be sought with Mind" but GuoGu/ShengYen would have us "seek enlightenment over and over"?
HuangBo:
The primordial darkness is the sphere in which every Buddha achieves Enlightenment. Thus, the very sphere in which karma arises may be called a Bodhimandala.
Every grain of matter, every appearance is one with Eternal and Immutable Reality!
Wherever your foot may fall, you are still within that Sanctuary for Enlightenment, though it is nothing perceptible.
I assure you that one who comprehends the truth of ‘nothing to be attained' is already seated in the sanctuary where he will gain his Enlightenment.
Submitted June 17, 2020 at 12:38PM by GuruHunter https://ift.tt/3fxVBzG
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