> Every one of the sentient beings bound to the wheel of alternating life and death is re-created from the karma of his own desires! Endlessly their hearts remain bound to the six states of existence, thereby involving them in all sorts of sorrow and pain. Ch'ing Ming [A famous lay-disciple.] says: 'There are people with minds like those of apes who are very hard to teach; people who need all sorts of precepts and doctrines with which to force their hearts into submission.' And so when thoughts arise, all sorts of dharmas [Doctrines, precepts, concepts, things.] follow, but they vanish with thought's cessation. We can see from this that every sort of dharma is but a creation of Mind. And all kinds of beings--humans, devas, sufferers in hell, asuras and all comprised within the six forms of life--each one of them is Mind-created. If only you would learn how to achieve a state of non-intellection, immediately the chain of causation would snap. Give up those erroneous thoughts leading to false distinctions! There is no 'self' and no 'other'. There is no 'wrong desire', no 'anger', no 'hatred', no 'love', no 'victory', no 'failure'. Only renounce the error of intellectual or conceptual thought-processes and your nature will exhibit its pristine purity--for this alone is the way to attain Enlightenment, to observe the Dharma (Law), to become a Buddha and all the rest. Unless you understand this, the whole of your great learning, your painful efforts to advance, your austerities of diet and clothing, will not help you to a knowledge of your own Mind. All such practices must be termed fallacious, for any of them will lead to your rebirth among 'demons'-- enemies of the truth--or among the crude nature spirits. What end is served by pursuits like those? Chih Kung says: 'Our bodies are the creations of our own minds.' But how can one expect to gain such knowledge from books? If only you could comprehend the nature of your own Mind and put an end to discriminatory thought, there would naturally be no room for even a grain of error to arise. Ch'ing Ming expressed this in a verse: Just spread out a mat For reclining quite flat When thought's tied to a bed Like a sick man growing worse. All karma will cease And all fancies disperse. THAT's what is meant by Bodhi! As it is, so long as your mind is subject to the slightest movement of thought, you will remain engulfed in the error of taking 'ignorant' and 'Enlightened' for separate states; this error will persist regardless of your vast knowledge of the Mahayana or of your ability to pass through the 'Four Grades of Sainthood' and the 'Ten Stages of Progress Leading to Enlightenment'. For all these pursuits belong to what is ephemeral; even the most strenuous of your efforts is doomed to fail, just as an arrow shot ever so high into the air must inevitably fall spent to the ground. So, in spite of them, you are certain to find yourselves back on the wheel of life and death. Indulging in such practices implies your failure to understand the Buddha's real meaning. Surely the endurance of so much unnecessary suffering is nothing but a gigantic error, isn't it? Chih Kung says elsewhere: 'If you do not meet with a teacher able to transcend the worlds, you will go on swallowing the medicine of the Mahayana Dharma quite in vain.'
- excerpt from The Zen Teaching of Huang Po, trans. by John Blofeld.
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The final section of this book, The Wan Ling Record, is filled with passages of a similar ilk to this one. A disciple or visitor asks Huang Po a question about the (no)nature of Zen teachings and he gives them a no BS, straightforward answer. Without insulting, without patronising, without pretentions or preaching, without promising to bestow magical powers or cleanse anyone's soul.
One subject that repeatedly comes up in these scenarios is the relationship of Zen to practices of orthodox Buddhist schools. Huang Po's response is always the same: devotions to holiness, practises, precepts which other schools teach are a distraction from enlightment. Not only do they not provide the understanding necessary to hear the Zen (no)dharma,the actively take you *further away* from it.
Next time someone tries to convince you that Zen Masters were just common or garden orthodox Buddhist preachers, ask them what Zen Masters say about "Buddhist teachings". If they can't answer directly, open a six-pack of Huang Po on them.
"rebirth among enemies of the truth"
"Fallacious"
"doomed to fail"
Couldn't be clearer.
Submitted September 26, 2020 at 06:51PM by mortonslast https://ift.tt/3cvJtPk
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