The Master instructed the group, saying: "Those who study the Way these days need to have faith in themselves and not go looking for something outside. Otherwise they get caught up in foolish and trifling environments and can't even tell crooked from straight. There are patriarchs and there are buddhas, but those are all just things found in the scriptural teachings. Someone comes along with a phrase he has picked up, brings it out in a manner that's half clear, half murky, and at once you start having doubts, looking at the sky, looking at the ground, running off to ask somebody else, getting into a great flurry. If you want to be first-rate fellows, don't go around talking about the ruler or the rebels, talking about right and wrong, talking about sex and money matters, spending all your days talking idle chatter!
"Here at my place we don't talk about who is a monk and who is a lay believer. When someone comes to me, I can tell exactly what he is like. Whatever circumstances he may have come from, I take all his words and utterances to be so many dreams and phantoms. But when I see a man who has learned to master the environment, I know that here is the secret meaning of the buddhas.
"A man in a Buddha environment, or state of enlightenment, can't announce himself, saying, 'I'm in a Buddha environment.' But a man of the Way who has learned to lean on nothing is master of the environment when he appears. If this kind of man appears and says to me, 'I'm looking for the Buddha,' I respond at once by meeting him with a clean and pure environment. If a man asks me about bodhisattvas, I respond at once by meeting him with an environment of pity and compassion. If a man asks me about bodhi, I respond at once by meeting him with an environment of wonderful purity. If a man asks me about nirvana, I respond at once by meeting him with an environment of stillness and tranquillity. The environment takes ten thousand different shapes, but the person never varies. Therefore in response to the object he manifests different forms, like the moon in the water.
"Followers of the Way, if you want to be constantly in accord with the Dharma, you'll have to begin by learning to be first-rate fellows. Be weak-kneed and wishy-washy and you'll never get there. No vessel with cracks in it is fit to hold ghee. If you want to be a truly great vessel, you must never be led astray by others. Wherever you are, play the host and then any place you stand will be a true one.
"Whatever confronts you, don't let yourself be imposed on. If you entertain even a moment of doubt, the devil will enter your mind. Even a bodhisattva, when he starts doubting, is prey to the devil of birth and death. Learn to put a stop to thoughts and never look for something outside yourselves. When an object appears, shine your light on it. Just have faith in this thing that is operating in you right now. Outside of it, nothing else exists.
"Your mind in one moment of thought creates the threefold world. Depending on conditions, you experience its various environments, and it divides itself to become the six dusts. In the way you now respond and utilize it, what do you lack? In the space of an instant you enter purity or enter defilement, enter the halls of Maitreya or enter the lands of the three eyes.' You wander at ease everywhere, for you see that these are all empty names."
My comment:
You can be a two bit fortune teller or a zennist of the highest caliber. Everybody makes their choice.
You can fool some people some times, but you can't fool all the people all the time.
Submitted September 30, 2020 at 10:12PM by CultAwarenessNetwork https://ift.tt/36mhLnc
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