Cherry Picking Foyan

Why don't you understand the essence that has always been there? There is not much to Buddhism; it only requires you to see the way clearly. It does not tell you to extinguish random thoughts and suppress body and mind, shutting your eyes and saying "This is It!" The matter is not like this.

You must observe the present state. What is its logic? What is its guiding pattern? Why are you confused? This is the most direct approach.

How about when I have not spoken to you, and you have not heard me; is there any point in coming and going? At such a time, do not make up forced rationalizations.

From the Buddhas above to the totality of beings below, all is *thus*. In this sense, sages and ordinary people are equal, wrong and right are equal; samsara and nirvana are equal. Now I ask you, whose business are the ancient Buddhas, and the generations of past, present and future? Whose business are the contaminated lands of the ten directions?

I say, if you understand all this thirty years from now, you will realize that I did tell you. Just don't say, "This is It!" If you do, that is called the view of an outsider.

Someone keeps pretending that when Zen masters say 'you can't tell black from white', that this is an insult, an admonishment against not being able to see what's really real.

There's a bunch of folks in this forum that absolutely need to feel that their ability to tell black from white is fundamentally better than other people's ability to tell black from white. Otherwise, their whole manipulative, double-standards-based shtick falls apart. How can they say 'one rule for me and another for you' and avoid the shame of their hypocrisy without this belief? They can't be naked in the sense that Foyan means when he says, "You must be completely naked before you will attain realization." Carrying a suitcase full of judgements and classifications doesn't count as naked.

Zen masters call each other people who can't tell black from white. Zen masters talk about non-duality. Foyan, who's words have been recently cherry picked to portray people with a different view as 'irrational' (the very definition of gaslighting, btw), whom I quoted above, himself says 'In this sense...wrong and right are equal...'

The important thing of course is not to be concerned with the arbitrary and biased judgements of other people, who may bully and gaslight or whatever, but instead to 'understand the essence that has always been there' for yourself.

Submitted February 17, 2023 at 12:30PM by sje397 https://ift.tt/h3WYJlO