One of Dahui's Letters in Depth

I was, of course, accused of being an 🚩ewk cultist🚩 by someone on my huatou post yesterday, and therefore unworthy of honest discussion. Fortunately, the same person elsewhere gave a cropped clip of one of Dahui's letters as proof that huatou was given to students to not lead to thinking. This letter says neither of those things. It does give an interesting window into how Dahui viewed huatou, and how it was utilized.

 

Let's look at the letter in full (written to a Vice Minister in the government):

According to your letter, you are “keeping mindful and wish to investigate thoroughly this one great matter of origination by dependence.” Having in the past devoted effort to this mind, it is most important that you not be in a rush. If you’re in a rush, then you’ll fall behind even more. Also, you must not be slack. If you’re slack, then you’ll become negligent. It is like the method for tuning a stringed instrument. The tension on the strings must hit the middle—only then can you play the tune. Merely, in the state of responding to conditions in daily activities, at all times watch-for-an-opening-to-pounce: this “I,” who is able to resolve right/wrong and crooked/straight for other people, receives whose favor and ultimately flows from what place? Keep on watching-for-an-opening-to-pounce—the road of the past “unripe” state will spontaneously “ripen.” Once the “unripe” state has “ripened,” then the “ripe” state will become “unripe.”

So the first instruction is to look at the individual who chooses right and wrong, and figure out how these categories are decided, where they come from.

 

What is the “ripe” state? It is: the five aggregates, six entrances, twelve loci, eighteen sense fields, the twenty-five types of existence, ignorance, karma-consciousness, the mind that reflects and calculates—flickering day and night, like a wild horse that never, even temporarily, stops. This one section makes people flow along in samsara, makes people commit bad actions.

Trying to help the ex-official see that it is attachment to this "correct" path, that they are attempting to attain, is what is causing them to get stuck in the weeds, and repeat samsaric actions.

 

Once this one section has become “unripe,” then awakening, nirvana, thusness, and the buddha-nature immediately become manifest. At the time of their becoming manifest, there can be no reflecting upon their manifestation. Therefore, after the ancient worthy [Preceptor Gaocheng] attained realization and understanding, he could explain the Way: “When [this wondrous true nature] activates the eye organ, it is like a thousand suns—of the ten-thousand images, none are left behind; when [the true nature] activates the ear organ, it is like being in a secluded valley—a big call gets a big echo, a small call a small echo.” In these sorts of matters, there is no relying on seeking from another. With no reliance on the power of another, spontaneously in the state of responding to conditions, one is lively like a fish waving its tail.

So, they recommend abandoning right/wrong, and, instead, look directly. It cannot be achieved by fulfilling the views of any authority. This is the expedient way.

 

If you can’t yet do this[surupamaerl emphasis], just pivot this mind that reflects on mundane defilements onto the state unreachable by reflection, and, as an experiment, try to reflect. What is the state unreachable by reflection? A monk asked Zhaozhou whether even a dog has buddha-nature. Zhou said: “Wu 無!” This one word [wu 無]—no matter what tricky maneuvers you employ, I request that you try to logically arrange this huatou or calculate this huatou! You may reflect, calculate, and logically arrange, but you won’t be able to find a place to put the huatou. The time when you become aware of squirming in your belly and distress in your mind is precisely the good time. Next, the eighth consciousness stops operating—when you become aware of this, don’t let go [of the huatou]. Just rally this word wu 無 awareness. Keep on rallying it to awareness—the “unripe” state will spontaneously “ripen,” and the “ripe” state will spontaneously become “unripe.”

 

So, the huatou that Dahui is recommending here doesn't actually look like the huatou commonly recommended today.

• Rather than being a primary source of enlightenment, it is given to someone who is unable to use the more expedient means.

• It is recommended to attempt to use the brain to resolve exactly what Joshu means, through reflection and calculation, rather than endlessly repeating the phrase until enlightenment spontaneously erupts.

I would argue, based on what was said earlier in the letter, and considering what huatous Dahui normally recommends (Who am I?; Shit stick; Mu) that the purpose of this reflection is to reach the point where one sees that the authority for whether or not they are enlightened is consistently coming from an authority figure outside of their own direct experience. When Joshu says "No", there is no cosmic understanding being passed on to us. Joshu isn't enlightened while we are not. Really looking into the "head-phrase" of Mu with our intellectual understanding will break our picking and choosing of authorities over our life, when the truth is that Joshu was only ever able to see what was before their own eyes, not ours.

 

In recent years in the Chan monasteries there have been those who chant perverse theories and become teaching masters. They say to students: “Just be concerned only with ‘maintaining stillness.’ ” Though they don’t know what sort of thing this “maintaining” is, and just who it is that’s in this “stillness,” nevertheless they say “stillness is the basis.” But they have no confidence in the existence of awakening, saying that awakening is [a nonessential like] “branches and leaves.” And they go on to quote the dialogue in which a monk asks Yangshan: “ ‘Do people today rely on awakening?’ Yangshan said: ‘It’s not the case that awakening doesn’t exist. However, [after having awakened, “delusion/awakening” is] falling to a secondary level.’ ” You must not tell a dream to an idiot, since he will immediately understand it as “real”—meaning that [the idiots will misunderstand the saying] “awakening is falling to a secondary level” [and take it literally]. Little do they imagine the existence of Guishan’s words warning students—it’s intensely painful! He said: “In investigating the ultimate principle take awakening as the standard.” [If you dis- pense with the gate of awakening as these perverse teachers do,] where are you going to put this Guishan saying? It can’t be that Guishan said this to mislead people of later generations, wanting to make them fall to a secondary level!

So two things are happening here; the first being that the common understanding ofhuatou is completely off; repeating some words until complete stillness takes over is not what Dahui was recommending; the second being that awakening is not the real thing once it is understood; this is understanding is falling to a secondary level.

 

[The next section of the letter recommends that the person being written to goes and meets another person that Dahui has been writing with].

[The next section is telling the vice minister, who believes they should abandon their post and pursue the Buddhadharma this advice] If you were to do this, then the good matter right in front of you would certainly get past you!

Not outside daily activities.

If you expand these dharma teachings into the state of responding to conditions in daily activities, with the intention of repaying the Emperor, seeking out worthies, and pacifying all-under-heaven, then truly you will not have violated his knowing [you are a talent worthy to be employed]. I hope that, [even though holding office in old age entails all sorts of toil,] you will bear it. If from beginning to end you act just as you are doing today, the buddhadharma and the worldly dharma will be fused into oneness. “Sometimes plowing [i.e., studying the buddhadharma], sometimes fighting [i.e., exerting effort in the mundane dharma],” over a long time you will become practiced at killing two birds with one stone. How could you not “coil 100,000 strings of cash around your waist and mount a crane to fly over to [become a Prefect in] Yangzhou”?

Submitted September 17, 2020 at 05:36PM by surupamaerl https://ift.tt/33wZn7W