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 4: Elevation to Pre-Zen Practice
In this section, I will begin discussion of a method that I have coined "pre-Zen practice"; which Huangbo often calls the Way. I have made this distinction to clarify that, for Huangbo, there is a difference between the Way, and complete, unexcelled enlightenment. Seekers often confuse the progress with the destination.
Starting with a discussion of what pre-Zen practice is, I will then consider why Huangbo discusses it at length, and how it replaces the practices of the other Buddhist schools. Briefly covered here, and in more detail later, is the nature of Zen beyond methods, and how all practices, including Huangbo's Way, are rejected.
As discussed previously, Huangbo teaches that all practices merely serve temporary needs for those who have not yet realized what the Zen Masters are talking about. Pre-Zen practice is the halting of all conceptualization. Huangbo warns us that:
2.47.You are one of those people who force the Unbecoming into conceptual moulds, such as the concept of patient suffering or the concept of seeking nothing outside yourself. Thereby you do yourself violence!
Rather than do this, the entire purpose of Transmission of Mind is to point us in the direction of our own direct experience. If we are unable to do this instantly, there is the possibility of becoming lost in various practices in an attempt to attain something. Huangbo says this towards the beginning:
1.03.If you students of the Way do not awake to this Mind substance, you will overlay Mind with conceptual thought, you will seek the Buddha outside yourselves, and you will remain attached to forms, pious practices and so on, all of which are harmful and not at all the way to supreme knowledge.
Whatever else, it is important that we understand Huangbo's warning; that Mind could be entered into in a flash, and if not done this way, we are in danger of being dragged into all sorts of meaningless doctrines and methods. Huangbo warns us that "hoping to reach the goal through mere learning" could take forever, and that those who historically had "sharp minds" understood immediately.(1.30) All practices fall short, which has been discussed here, including Huangbo's Way. Huangbo examines this with a student:
1.27.Q: If those teachings were meant for the dull-witted, I have yet to hear what Dharma has been taught to those of really high capacity.
A: If they are really men of high capacity, where could they find people to follow? If they seek from within themselves, they will find nothing tangible; how much less can they find a Dharma worthy of their attention elsewhere! Do not look to what is called the Dharma by preachers, for what sort of Dharma could that be?
Q: If that is so, should we not seek for anything at all?
A: By conceding this, you would save yourself a lot of mental effort.
Q: But in this way everything would be eliminated. There cannot just be nothing.
A: Who called it nothing? Who was this fellow? But you wanted to seek for something.
Q: Since there is no need to seek, why do you also say that not everything is eliminated?
A: Not to seek is to rest tranquil. Who told you to eliminate anything? Look at the void in front of your eyes. How can you produce it or eliminate it?
This is cutting right to the point.
Huangbo wants us to understand clearly. They explain the same issues, again and again:
2.06.If you will conceive of a Buddha, you will be obstructed by that Buddha!!! And when you conceive of sentient beings, you will be obstructed by those beings. All such dualistic concepts as ‘ignorant' and ‘Enlightened', ‘pure' and ‘impure', are obstructions...Just as apes spend their time throwing things away and picking them up again unceasingly, so it is with you and your learning. All you need is to give up your ‘learning', your ‘ignorant' and ‘Enlightened', ‘pure' and ‘impure', ‘great' and ‘little', your ‘attachment' and ‘activity'. Such things are mere conveniences, mere ornaments within the One Mind.
...
So just discard all you have acquired as being no better than a bed spread for you when you were sick. Only when you have abandoned all perceptions, there being nothing objective to perceive; only when phenomena obstruct you no longer; only when you have rid yourself of the whole gamut of dualistic concepts of the ‘ignorant' and ‘Enlightened' category, will you at last earn the title of Transcendental Buddha.
The original substance cannot be moved or swayed by concepts. Huangbo says that "If you take [the yellow leaves of the Tathāgata] for truth, you are no member of our sect; and what bearing can it have on your original substance?"(1.30) Harsh words; true words. This is how a best friend speaks.
The Way of non-conceptualization is more expedient than those other practices because it rejects them, taking the nature of the original substance into account. Again, right at the beginning, Huangbo lays the entire groundwork for what a person who understands demonstrates:
1.02.As to performing the six pāramitās and vast numbers of similar practices, or gaining merits as countless as the sands of the Ganges, since you are fundamentally complete in every respect, you should not try to supplement that perfection by such meaningless practices. When there is occasion for them, perform them; and, when the occasion is passed, remain quiescent.
"Remain quiescent" is the real thing; the Way is a facsimile. Acting appropriately in every situation. These ideas will be discussed in more detail later. For now, Huangbo gives us these practical instructions:
2.37.Those who desire progress along the Way must first cast out the dross acquired through heterogeneous learning. Above all, they must avoid seeking for anything objective or permitting themselves any sort of attachment. Having listened to the profoundest doctrines, they must behave as though a light breeze had caressed their ears, a gust had passed away in the blink of an eye.
~___~
2.46.Nevertheless, with the merest desire to attach yourselves to this or that, a mental symbol is soon formed, such symbols in turn giving rise to all those ‘sacred writings' which lead you back to undergo the various kinds of rebirth. So let your symbolic conception be that of a void, for then the wordless teaching of Zen will make itself apparent to you.
~___~
2.54.My advice to you is to rid yourselves of all your previous ideas about studying Mind or perceiving it. When you are rid of them, you will no longer lose yourselves amid sophistries. Regard the process exactly as you would regard the shovelling of dung.
This idea of shoveling dung comes up several times in Huangbo, as well as elsewhere in Zen literature. This is the Way. Yet, I am trying to make it as clear as possible that this is not Zen. Zen is never a practice. The Way is merely a facsimile of Bodhi:
1.22.The Bodhisattva's mind is like the void, for he relinquishes everything and does not even desire to accumulate merits.
Submitted October 13, 2020 at 07:22PM by surupamaerl https://ift.tt/33R8YaZ
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