Record of Tung-shan [Dongshan]:
When Caoshan took leave of Dongshan, Dongshan asked, "Where are you going?"
Caoshan replied, "To an unchanging place."
Dongshan retorted, "If it is unchanging, how could there be any going?"
Caoshan replied, "The going is also unchanging."
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(Welcome link) (ewkwho?) note: When new agers and unaffiliated Buddhists, Western TeTaoers, and perennialists come in here and talk about impermanence it always sounds like only that; talk talk talk. The physical reality of impermanence seems like a foreign thing to them... the concept of impermanence is what they've put their faith in. They don't see the seedling, the tree, and the fallen rotting log all in one in the world around them.
The corollary of course is that they don't understand real permanence either. Caoshan, who is all but forgotten by most people, opened up a can of whoop ass on Dongshan, but how can his teaching be understood as true permanence if you only have the idea of impermanence?
Huangbo talks about "no unalterable dharma". That's not a revelation or anything... it's a statement of the obvious. Just as Caoshan's whoop ass is really nothing more than a statement of the obvious.
Submitted September 21, 2020 at 09:23PM by ewk https://ift.tt/3mCX5Nb
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