Huineng's Practice

This is the 446 entry in Dahui’s Treasury Eye of True Teaching. It is a short sermon by Huineng, the sixth patriarch,

The sixth patriarch said to an assembly,

Good friends, each of you clean your mind and listen to my teaching. Your own mind is Buddha - don't doubt any more. There is not a thing you can establish outside - it is all the basic mind conceiving all sorts of things. Therefore scripture says, "When thought is produced, all kinds of things are produced; when thought passes away, all kinds of things pass away." If you want to develop knowledge of all kinds, you need to attain absorption in unity, absorption in one practice. If in all places you do not dwell on appearances, do not conceive aversion or attraction to any of those appearances, and have no grasping or rejection, do not think of such things as benefit, fulfillment, or destruction, and you are at peace, calm, open, aloof, this is called absorption in oneness. If in all places whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, your pure unified direct mind does not move from the site of enlightenment, truly making a pure land, this is called absorption in one practice. If people are equipped with these two absorptions, it is like the earth having seeds, able to store, develop, and perfect their fruits. Unity and unified practice too are like this. My teaching now is like timely rain moistening the earth; your Buddha-nature is like the seeds - when watered, they will sprout. Those who take up my teaching will certainly attain enlightenment; those who follow my practice will certainly realize the sublime result.

What’s Huineng’s practice?

Only after you "realize the sublime result" can you start to "develop knowledge of all kinds", as well as be "able to store, develop, and perfect their fruits." He guarantees you'll get enlightened if you take up his teaching. So what's the hurdle?

Submitted July 14, 2022 at 06:10AM by astroemi https://ift.tt/Q4LOCn7