On Ordinary Mind

Joshu asked Nansen, "What is the Way?"
Nansen answered, "Your ordinary mind, that is the Way."

These words tend to drown people in complacency. Some folks read this and convince themselves it means their mind is perfect the way it is and knowing that is enlightenment. They settle into this big comfy nest and don't want to practice, thinking it's unnecessary and contrived. They find quotes they can interpret to confirm this bias. They just go on picking and choosing, grasping and rejecting, setting up oppositions and dichotomies, thinking this is ordinary mind.

All of the nuance is here:

The Way does not belong to knowing or not knowing. Knowing is illusion. Not knowing is lack of discrimination. When you get to this unperplexed Way, it is like the vastness of space, an unfathomable void, so how can it be this or that, yes or no?

So then how can we know what ordinary mind is? Is it the mind that's full of anxiety? Is it the mind that craves recognition and success? Is it ordinary mind that thinks it knows what ordinary mind is? Nansen said you have to get to it.

Sengcan said:

If you wish to know the truth,
then hold to no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.

A diseased mind isn't ordinary. Stop holding opinions and setting up likes and dislikes, and just pay attention. That's the practice.

Hongzhi said:

Patch-robed monks make their thinking dry and cool and rest from the remnants of conditioning. Persistently brush up and sharpen this bit of the field. Directly cut through all the overgrown grass. Reach the limit in all directions without defiling even one atom. Spiritual and bright, vast and lustrous, illuminating fully what is before you, directly attain the shining light and clarity that cannot attach to a single defilement. Immediately tug and pull back the ox’s nose. Of course his horns are imposing and he stomps around like a beast, yet he never damages people’s sprouts or grain. Wandering around, accept how it goes. Accepting how it goes, wander around.

He said to get rid of the conditioning. Let it all go. Accept how it goes. That's ordinary mind. The mind that cannot attach to a single defilement. Equanimity. Serenity. He wrote a book about it.

He says you have to be persistent.

Guishan said:

Now though a beginner attains total sudden realization of inherent truth from conditions, there is still the habit energy of beginningless ages which one cannot clear away all at once. It is necessary to teach that person to clean away the currently active streaming consciousness. This is cultivation, but it doesn't mean there is a special doctrine to teach one to practice or aim for.

Guishan said ordinary mind is cultivated. It can be realized by the beginner but it takes practice and guidance to clear away the habit energy. What habit energy should be cleared away?

Yuanwu said:

What should be destroyed and obliterated? Greed and anger and jealousy, emotional consciousness and attachments, contrived actions and defiled actions, filth and confusion, names and forms and the interpretive route, arbitrary views and knowledge and false sentiments.

He said destroyed and obliterated. That doesn't mean when it's convenient. It means gone. For good. Get rid of greed and anger and jealousy and everything that comes with them. Get rid of interpretations, arbitrary views, and knowledge. How?

Dahui said:

Right in the midst of the hubbub, you mustn’t forget the business of the bamboo chair and reed cushion. Usually you set your mind on a still concentration point, but you must be able to use it right in the midst of the hubbub. If you have no strength amidst commotion, after all it’s as if you never made any effort in stillness.

Conscious awareness and concentration. Making effort in stillness to have strength in commotion.

Also Dahui:

Buddha said, if you want to know the realm of buddhahood, you must make your mind as clear as empty space and leave false thinking and all grasping far behind, causing your mind to be unobstructed wherever it may turn. The realm of buddhahood is not some external world where there is a formal “Buddha”: it’s the realm of the wisdom of a self-awakened sage. Once you are determined that you want to know this realm, you do not need adornment, cultivation, or realization to attain it. You must clear away the stains of afflictions from alien sensations that have been on your mind since beginningless time, (so that your mind) is as broad and open as empty space, detached from all the clinging of the discriminating intellect, and your false, unreal, vain thoughts too are like empty space. Then this wondrous effortless mind will be unimpeded wherever it goes.

Clear it all away. If you find yourself attached to the discriminating intellect, that's not ordinary mind. Even discriminating "ordinary mind" from "not ordinary mind" is going astray. Make your mind as broad and open as empty space. Not easy. Not difficult.

Yuanwu illustrates it from the teacher’s perspective:

Real teachers smelt and refine their students hundreds and thousands of times. Whenever the learner has any biased attachments or feelings of doubt, the teacher resolves them and breaks through them and causes the learner to penetrate through to the depths and let go of everything, so that the learner can realize equanimity and peace while in action. Real teachers transform learners so that they reach the stage where one cannot be broken, like a leather bag that can withstand any impact. Only after this does the Zen teacher let the transformed student go forth to deal with people and help them. This is no small matter. If the student is incomplete in any respect, then the model is not right, and the unripe student comes out all uneven and full of excesses and deficiencies, and appears ridiculous to real adepts.

Therefore, in order to teach the Dharma, the ancient worthies worked for completeness and correctness, and clarity in all facets. This means inwardly having one's own practice as pure as ice and jade, and outwardly having a complete and well-rounded mastery of techniques, a perspicacious view of all conscious beings, and skill in interchange.

Does any of this sound like a trivial shrugging away of practice and effort? Does it sound like "just being yourself?" Completeness and correctness, and clarity in all facets. How many people are naturally like that? Some people run around spewing biased attachments and opinions all over the place and claim to be studying zen, tethered to the stake of "ordinary mind" and believing there's nothing for them to do.

Yuanwu also said:

The ancients worked hard for the sake of the one Great Cause. Their determination is indeed worthy of respect, and they served as an everlasting example for later generations.
When you set your body on the meditation bench, it is no more than silencing and emptying the mind and investigating with your whole being. Just make your mind and thoughts clarify and become still.

Zen takes hard work and determination. It's not an excuse to be lazy and arrogant.

Submitted February 05, 2023 at 10:39PM by patchrobe https://ift.tt/JgtrDle