This essay is meant to be taken as a whole, but it is comprised of 14 sections, and is rather long. Though the reader can return to the hub at any time to gain access to all other sections of the essay, each and every section is also written to be a standalone essay, should the reader choose to read only that.
Section 1: The Philosophy on Slow and Painful Practice
In this section, we will look at how Huangbo views the practices of the various schools of their time. Huangbo will explain how these diverse efforts aimed at attaining enlightenment cause suffering for the seeker, and take many aeons to accomplish their goal. This "attainment", which Huangbo says can be realized "in a flash", is neither made better nor worse by these practices, and, therefore, Huangbo views them as errors.
Huangbo saw conventional Buddhist practices of their time as causing needless pain and suffering. This includes what they refer to as studying and practicing "the Way according to the Three Vehicles,"(1.30) "the doctrines of existence and non-existence" and "the Mahāyāna medicine,"(1.34) "the Ten Stages of a Bodhisattva's Progress,"(1.06,08) and the avoidance of "evil" or pursuit of "good."(1.07) They also specifically mention the shortcomings of the Theravedans,(2.37) and the Pure Land Buddhists.(2.26) They warn students of the dangers of these paths repeatedly throughout the book:
1.30.They do not know that so much knowledge and deduction have just the contrary effect of piling up obstacles. Merely acquiring a lot of knowledge makes you like a child who gives himself indigestion by gobbling too much curd...All you can call them is people who suffer from indigestion.
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1.34...though you gain profound knowledge from your studies, though you make the most painful efforts and practise the most stringent austerities, you will still fail to know your own mind. All your effort will have been misdirected and you will certainly join the family of Māra. What advantage can you gain from this sort of practice?
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1.06.Moreover, whether you accomplish your aim in a single flash of thought or after going through the Ten Stages of a Bodhisattva's Progress, the achievement will be the same; for this state of being admits of no degrees, so the latter method merely entails aeons of unnecessary suffering and toil.
Embodying this "flash" is key to understanding Huangbo's school, and to circumventing the wasted time, and painful suffering, of all the numerous schools of Buddhism. Huangbo wants us not to be confused, so they tell us plain that "The canonical teachings of the Three Vehicles are just remedies for temporary needs."(1.30) Rather, Huangbo would have us realize directly, avoiding the temporary:
1.34.You must get away from the doctrines of existence and non-existence, for Mind is like the sun, forever in the void, shining spontaneously, shining without intending to shine. This is not something which you can accomplish without effort, but when you reach the point of clinging to nothing whatever, you will be acting as the Buddhas act.
I will discuss Mind in further detail throughout the essay; it is enough to know, at the moment, that we are moving towards an expedient understanding that does not confuse what is essential to everyone with various pious practices and austerities. Huangbo says:
1.03.If you look upon the Buddha as presenting a pure, bright or Enlightened appearance, or upon sentient beings as presenting a foul, dark or mortal-seeming appearance, these conceptions resulting from attachment to form will keep you from supreme knowledge, even after the passing of as many aeons as there are sands in the Ganges.
That's a lot of time! Huangbo wants us to evade this.
So what is the central issue here? It is the misconception of attainment, which leads to the belief in, and practice of, gradual stages of enlightenment. Bodhidharma's school is instant. Huangbo compares the flash and the gradual:
2.49.If you practise means of attaining Enlightenment for three myriad aeons but without losing your belief in something really attainable, you will still be as many aeons from your goal as there are grains of sand in the Ganges. But if, by a direct perception of the Dharmakāya's true nature, you grasp it in a flash, you will have reached the highest goal taught in the Three Vehicles. Why? Because the belief that the Dharmakāya can be obtained belongs to the doctrines of those sects which do not understand the truth.
This is what separates Huangbo's school from Buddhism, or any transcendental doctrines; the certainty that all that effort attempting to attain something according to the teachings of a particular school is wasted effort that causes pain, and takes forever. Propounders of these doctrines "do not understand the truth." They wear you out. Huangbo expresses this in verse:
1.34.Its strength once spent, the arrow falls to earth./You build up lives which won't fulfil your hopes./How far below the Transcendental Gate/From which one leap will gain the Buddha's realm!
So all that effort falls short! Progress by stages is not what Huangbo instructs. They teach "...it is better to achieve sudden self-realization and to grasp the fundamental Dharma."(1.07) "Suddenly"; "in a flash"; this is language of Huangbo. Not concentration, meditation, repetition.
As this essay continues, I will be discussing these themes in further detail. For now, these two quotes below sum up this section in it's entirety:
1.10.So, if you students of the Way are mistaken about your own real Mind, not recognizing that it is the Buddha, you will consequently look for him elsewhere, indulging in various achievements and practices and expecting to attain realization by such graduated practices. But, even after aeons of diligent searching, you will not be able to attain to the Way. These methods cannot be compared to the sudden elimination of conceptual thought, in the certain knowledge that there is nothing at all which has absolute existence, nothing on which to lay hold, nothing on which to rely, nothing in which to abide, nothing subjective or objective.
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1.08.Even if you go through all the stages of a Bodhisattva's progress towards Buddhahood, one by one; when at last, in a single flash, you attain to full realization, you will only be realizing the Buddha-Nature which has been with you all the time; and by all the foregoing stages you will have added to it nothing at all. You will come to look upon those aeons of work and achievement as no better than unreal actions performed in a dream. That is why the Tathāgata said: ‘I truly attained nothing from complete, unexcelled Enlightenment.
Submitted October 07, 2020 at 04:54PM by surupamaerl https://ift.tt/2GMYMqN
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