Finding Certainty

Foyan says:

The original Zen masters are real true friends. Ha, ha, ha! One can only say this much; if you understand, you can have the experience yourself. Then you will have something to act on. If you get involved in rationalizations, comparisons, and verbalizations, then you do not understand, and you cannot experience it yourself.

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Where is the problem? The problem lies in the fact that you are always coming from the midst of conceptual comparisons, and do not personally attain experience. All of you go sit on benches, close your eyes, and demolish your thinking all the way from the Milky Way above to Hades below before you can make a statement or two. But when you get to a quiet place, you still don’t get the ultimate point. Before your eyes is nothing but things that obstruct people. Lightly questioned, you cannot reach the aim.

Kir and ewk talk about this all the time; people want to get into heated debates about Buddhism/not Buddhism, meditation/no meditation but can't talk about the basic premise of it all. What good is this? I have yet to see a ZM give a long, pedantic analysis of why Zen is or is not Buddhism.

 

Right now, let’s base the discussion on realities; we mustn’t talk at random. For the moment, let me ask you this: when you haven’t eaten anything at all for three days, can you be active? Certainly you cannot be active. Only after eating something can you be active. If so, it is all food energy. But when you get here, if you want to find suitable people, first it is necessary to see that which is not food energy. Zen should be studied in this way; this alone is called finding certainty.

Foyan talks about initial inspiration. Isn't it more appropriate to understand what is fueling oneself than to discuss the proper way to say "Mu"?

 

Once you have eaten, that should sustain you as you take this matter up and look into it. But you are totally ignorant of this matter; instead you try to apply it in idleness, discussing right and wrong, focusing on useless things, either thinking about them or trying to demolish them. What a pity! It’s all misapplication.

You do not realize that as soon as you aim your mind you’re already a generation too late! In an instant, you have flowed into ideation, which forms the root of birth and death.

Was Foyan a Buddhist scholar? Even if they were, how is that useful to me? If Foyan isn't speaking to me, I might as well burn the book.

 

When Danxia held up a whisk, Layman Pang held up a hammer. When Danxia tossed his whisk down, Layman Pang put his hammer down. The next day, Layman Pang said, “How do you interpret yesterday’s case?” Danxia relaxed and reclined. Layman Pang left. Are these not real knowers? How could this admit of your arbitrary explanations, or permit you to add explanatory footnotes?

Also, Yantou said, “These who cultivate purification must let it come forth from their own hearts in each individual situation, covering the entire universe.” How can this be quiet sitting and meditating?

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Have you not read how Touzi asked Cuiwei “Can I hear the secret message of Zen?” Cuiwei stood and looked around. Touzi said, “I don’t understand the hidden statement; please give me another indication.” Cuiwei said, “You want to get soused with a second ladle of foul water?” Touzi was thereupon enlightened.

You people have not attained the experience, so you miss quite a few good things in the course of a day. That is why I say the original Zen masters are real true friends. The path of the original Zen masters is like the bright sun in the blue sky— why are there people losing the way?

If somebody tells you that what the Masters are saying is difficult to understand, or intentionally mysterious, and arrogant, and whatever other nonsense their brains can come up with, they are not your true friends.

Submitted September 24, 2020 at 05:24PM by surupamaerl https://ift.tt/2RUVB2J