Freedom & Void Investigations

As an opener, Gushan asks

Haven't you read the saying, 'Conception is a robber; consciousness makes waves in which everyone is drowned, without any freedom.'

and I think it sheds some light on what Deshan means when he proclaims

Don't seek Buddha, for Buddha is a mass-murdering robber who has seduced who knows how many people into the pits of the demons of lust.

because since your mind is the actual Buddha right here, clearly then seeking some 'Buddha' is itself just another act of hunting shadows and losing sight. I take Deshan to say that the concept of Buddha drowns people as they give up their aliveness getting swirled up in waves of doctrines and worship and fantasies of attainment. Is this not a readily observed fact?

Gushan goes on to say

If you have not yet penetrated the great matter, it's best to stop, ceasing all striving, so body and mind are simple and serene. Refrain from fixation at all times, and the matter will actually be easily revealed.

and Foyan echoes this

Just detach from gross mental objects, and whatever subtle ones there are will naturally clear out, and eventually you will come to understand spontaneously; you don't need to seek.

The latter calls this "putting conceptualization to rest and forgetting mental objects, not being a partner to the dusts" for what they all describe appears to specify our absorption into conditional conceptual thought as that which blinds people. So how can one face the phenomena of the world?

Xuansha says

You must be like a dead tree or cold ashes in the face of objects and situations while acting responsively according to the time, without losing proper balance. A mirror reflects a multitude of images without their confusing its brilliance; birds fly through the sky without mixing up the color of the sky.

and Huangbo when commenting on his students' clinging to sounds and forms

Why do they not copy me by letting each thought go as though it were nothing, or as though it were a piece of rotten wood, a stone, or the cold ashes of a dead fire? Or else, by just making whatever slight response is suited to each occasion?

and perhaps we can all agree that the recommendation of non-attachment in these teachings, the work in being a mind that rests on no phenomena but remains free and responsive, has the function of not drowning in conception to actually have a shot at mind seeing itself clearly, which Foyan defines to be Buddhism. Yeah he says your mind is Buddha, the journey to seeing it clearly is Buddhism. That's it. The golden statues, robes, sutras and today's important monk-schedule are ultimately colourful trash.

Gushan says the following about giving doctrine-lingo examples

if you talk this way to someone who's never given a hint of that, he'll grab you and ask why you're babbling nonsense - and you can't blame him.

There's people that get offended by the way Deshan supposedly talks about the holy Buddha with irreverence in the quote up there, not understanding the message as they froth about, offended. There's people that get extremely defensive when their religious path is questioned, and is this not flailing arms trying to stay afloat in those waves of consciousness? Then there's people attached to practices, structures, guidance, and the lot. What does all the clutter have to do with one's own realisation of one's own nature, I mean, at some point, seriously?

Now back to zen and the purpose of Buddhism, Foyan again says

Mind does not see mind; to get it, you must not see it as mind.

and we've all heard the 'eye does not see the eye' analogy to paint a logical picture of why mind can't directly see itself. The danger then would be to make a concept of the mind, or where to locate it. That would be going back to those conscious waves and all the fine hard earned relinquishing of thought and phenomena would be busted.

But Huangbo knows a student needs something to hold on to, so he says

So let your symbolic conception be that of a void, for then the wordless teaching of Zen will make itself apparent to you.

and how fitting a thing to talk about, what else but a 'boundless void' should we expect to behold in the very space of something that can't see itself because it is itself? Mind can't see itself, so when mind looks for itself it beholds a void - which we in turn can also hold as a placeholder without ascribing further characteristics.

As a zen-explorer, for once wholly unconcerned with the distractions of trivial phenomena and talk of Buddhas and manifold prescriptions, yet in the midst of phenomena, where then is the void spotted in our one and only immediate experience?

Foyan again

I tell you, just step back and look.

Just turn your attention around and reflect.

Think you're hot on the tail of the void? Read Huangbo to confirm.

Any void opinions?

Submitted April 27, 2021 at 03:19PM by Coinionaire https://ift.tt/3xtP1E4