Foyan: Stop Opinions

This one's dense (double meaning) so I am going to machine gun this:

(1.)

The third patriarch of Zen said, “ Don’t seek reality, just put a stop to opinions.” He also said, “As soon as there are judgments of right and wrong, the mind is lost in a flurry."...

When you read his saying, “Don’t seek reality,” you say there is no further need to seek— this means you are still entertaining opinions and are in a flurry of judgments;

...(2.)

People who study Zen nowadays are all like this; reading a transformative saying and reaching an insight into the words, they then try to apply it to all sayings, thinking they are all the same...

...Just do not conceive all sorts of opinions and views. This nonseeking does not mean blanking out and ignoring everything. In everyday life, twenty-four hours a day, when there is unclarity in the immediate situation it is generally because the opinionated mind is grasping and rejecting...

...(3.)

Grand Master Yongjia said, “The true nature of ignorance is the very nature of enlightenment; the empty body of illusions and projections is the very body of realities.” These two are each distinct; how do you understand the logic of identity? You have to experience the mind without seeking; then they will integrate and you will get to be trouble-free.

[The non-discriminatory mind is compared to how we do not discriminate between an artist and their artwork] It is because of not realizing this that you conceive various opinions, having views of yourself and views of other people, creating your own fair and foul.

1. Opinions uproot the self. This is called seeking reality.

2. To not seek reality does not include categorizing until one is satisfied, nor "lounging in Nirvana" (my words) without a care or thought.

3. The unclarity of (2.) is a failure to shape identity around what is unknown (mind-without-seeking). The workable advice to avoid (1.) is to see the integration of identity as no different then how one views art v. artist. This is the way to the unknown.

Submitted August 14, 2020 at 07:15PM by surupamaerl https://ift.tt/3iGXnzO