Ordinary mind is not for ordinary people

Gulin was an heir of Hengchuan, he said:

Ordinary people reify the phenomenal world and think it exists in the absolute sense. Those who seek enlightenment separate from the world, reject it, and think it doesn't exist. Those enlightened through contemplation of the casual nexus think it exists as an illusion. For bodhisattvas, right in its embodiment it is emptiness. In the scriptures Buddha says, "If anyone sees me in terms of form or seek for me in terms of sound, this person is following a false path and cannot see me."

Nanchuan said, "ordinary mind is the way". When someone says that, what's the first thing that comes to mind regarding how to walk the way? I bet most (who are not knee deep in interpretations of scriptures and sayings) are thinking the same thing.

I'll tell you what I think: Oh, just go about my ordinary business using my mind in my ordinary way, and the enlightenment? Well that's just the realization that all those things that used to bother me about my ordinary ways are in fact perfectly perfect.

But clearly, the ordinary mind of Nanchuan is not the mind of ordinary people. Ordinary people see everything as form. The chair, the tree, the book... and all the qualities ascribed to those words. So while ordinary mind might be ordinary in one sense, it's not ordinary in the ordinary sense.

So, a world without forms, that's not an easy perspective to get to.

Submitted July 13, 2022 at 07:34PM by JeanClaudeCiboulette https://ift.tt/wiQcnJB