Crapping it all out and 5 things I can't do for you.

From Chan Talks: On Liberation and Enlightenment (Cleary)

Some are faster than others. Qian and Zhu-an were both in the congregation of Dahui but one of these guys, Zhu-an, concentrated on 'Mu' for 40 days and awakened:

While he was contemplating the saying, he got soaked by rain standing by a railing; he didn't even notice people telling him he was getting soaked in the rain, and paid no attention when someone pulled him away. ^{Wumen says: You need to do the work like this; you won't fail to get results.}

Dahui made Zhu-an the librarian.

As for Qian, he followed Dahui another 15 years but failed to have any initiatory experience. So one day he asked the librarian for help:

"I have had no initiatory experience at all — please be so kind as to tell me what to do."

The librarian said, "Why do you come to try to find out the depth of the water? Study Chan with a true heart."

Qian said, "I really consider the matter of birth and death important — how could I talk nonsense?"

The librarian said, "If you want to do the work, you should treat everything you've ever written as if you'd taken castor oil, crapping it all out to make your gut empty. For now come and sit in meditation with me; when your conditioned consciousness stops for a while, then I'll talk to you."

These two then sat in meditation for over half a month, in a peaceful and pleasant state of mind. Suddenly Dahui told Qian to deliver a letter to the prime minister and Qian was vexed, just as he was attaining a good state, this mission was dropped on him. Observing this, the librarian said

Just accept it; I'll go with you and help you with everything on the way. But there are five things I can't do for you.

Qian was keen to understand what these 5 things were, but the librarian only said he'd tell him along the way. When finally on the way, Qian asked about the 5 things and the librarian said

"Dressing, eating, defecating, and urinating."

Qian only counted 4 things there and wondered about the fifth. The librarian responded:

"Your riding this corpse on the road — I can't do that for you."

From this Qian awakened. The librarian went back to let Qian deliver the letter by himself. The prime minister saw than Qian was not as before and when Qian made it back to Dahui, the old Master's clear eyes immediately spotted his attainment.

​

My comment:

It becomes clear that the matter of Zen is one of utter independence. What good is it to hang on the mouths and pens of other people all this life? You create all the authority you accept, you give and take authority to and from anyone you've ever or never met.

We are so conditioned to absorb instead of observe that a Zen Master's job is to use the authority bestowed upon him to point the very nonsense contained within this hierarchy out to one, so one has someone to listen to in the comfort of one's habit.

After Wumen attained at the sound of a breakfast drum and went to his teacher's room to convey it, his teacher looked at him and at once said

"You've seen a spirit, seen a ghost."

The teacher drew himself up and shouted. I (Wumen) also shouted.

The teacher shouted again, and I too shouted again.

Henceforth I never backed down.

The day the ex-student returns the shouts and whacks of their ex-teachers is the real independence day. Eye to eye. Dancing on Yuelin's eyebrows.

A thunderclap under the clear blue sky

All beings on earth open their eyes;

Everything under heaven bows together;

Mount Sumeru leaps up and dances.

What took Qian so long?

Submitted August 17, 2020 at 03:34AM by Coinionaire https://ift.tt/3h9eBFW