Wonder

Association with good companions is a serious recommendation of the ancient sages. Students today should follow the words of the Buddhas and Patriarchs by finding a teacher to attain discernment. Otherwise, how can you call yourselves students?

What's the deal with this passage? I know the community has ideas about teachers. What is a teacher? What is a student?

More to the purpose of this excerpt. Foyan says:

If you want to clarify this matter, you must arouse wonder and look into it. If you wonder deeply about this matter, transcendental knowledge will become manifest. Why? The task of the journey just requires the sense of doubt to cease. If you do, not actively wonder, how can the sense of doubt cease?

I heard someone say the other day that the basic fundamental nature was calm and curious. I don't know where they got this from but it stuck with me. Here's Foyan on the fundamental state:

[In Chengdu my teacher] heard a saying of how when a Buddhist enters the path of insight, knowledge and principle merge, environment and mind join, and there is no distinction between that which realizes and that which is realized...Later the Buddhist canonical master of Tang came to the rescue of the doctrine: “When knowledge and principle merge, environment and mind unite, it is like when drinking water one spontaneously knows whether it is cool or warm.”

Submitted September 06, 2020 at 09:58PM by surupamaerl https://ift.tt/357EgeV