A monk asked Jiashan, "How is it when getting rid of dust to see Buddha?" Jiashan replied, "You should directly swing the sword. If you don't swing the sword, the fisherman stays in the nest." The monk then brought it to ask Shishuang. "How is it when getting rid of dust to see Buddha?" Shishuang answered, "He has no country - where will you meet him?" After this, the monk returned to Jiashan and reported what happened. Hearing this, Jiashan went up in the hall and said, "In the establishment of method and school, he does not compare to me: in profound talk entering the principle though, I am still a hundred steps behind Shishuang."
[Book of Serenity, Case 68]
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Jiashan urges us to swing the sword directly. Meaning what though? And why? "What" is that which can provisionally be called the attainment of enlightenment. "Why" is because as soon as the individual hesitates they fall into the ocean of indecision that separates the shores of self and buddhahood. Here the individual is like a traveller growing up in one part of a continent and looking out over the water at a foreign shore; not realizing though that said land in the distance isn't actually separated from them but rather the very same continent they themselves are standing on. So too, the self and buddhahood are not divided but only appear as such due to our attachments to certain ideas.
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In fact, there is no real barrier between self and buddhahood, which furthermore explains "how" the sword can be swung directly. Realizing the thusness of the self-nature is like crossing the smallest amount of empty space; only in reality, it's more immediate. The inadequacy of analogy and metaphor here arises due to the fact they always involve some degree of superfluity; translated too literally, they will always increase the journey and place one beyond one's destination. There is no substitute for waking up in bed when it comes to finding one's way home.
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Again, Jiashan urges us to swing the sword directly. There is nothing between you and enlightenment other than yourself. If you can get out of your own way, you can swing the sword directly. But this means directly at enlightenment, not some means of attaining enlightenment (Swinging the sword directly is itself the entirety of the true means! Just like how not finding one's mind is pacifying one's mind)
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Jiashan, with the skill of a consummate swordsman, has used words to articulate the unsayable. Aiming beyond words, he has cleaved his target clean through. When one swings a sword directly, one does not think or ponder or ruminate over this. One does not have to cross one's legs a certain way or burn incense or banish one's thoughts. One just swings the sword directly. There is no ceremony or salute or resounding of the gongs; the sword that is swung directly cuts through the entire universe as if it were a single sheet of paper. Here every sutra spirals apart in ribbons of mutilated text and the heads of all the gods and buddhas bounce and roll away from their toppling bodies. Nothing can withstand the sword of enlightenment because the whole universe was simply a pattern on a thin layer of silk veiled in front of the eyes. This is also why no special skill with the sword is required.
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Just swing the sword directly. Anything that stands in your way, strike it down. You should leave nothing between you and enlightenment. If someone made a statue of you that was realistic to an uncanny degree, this would no more be an adequate substitute for your whole person than the crudest representation. So too, anything that seems like enlightenment is worthless, no matter how slight the deviation. Just swing the sword directly, not adjacently. The way of Zen is not a host of parallel paths, it is the one true private road that leads directly to your very own self-nature. Do not pass yourself by! But if you really swing the sword directly, you cannot help but strike true. The world that is otherwise your master is merely a dangling marionette. One stroke and you will sever all its strings.
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The desire to build or erect anything here must also be cut through. Emphasizing even the least form of practice is simply adding barriers to your enlightenment. This is why it's important to renounce meditation practices, among other things. If such a suggestion arouses your passion, ask yourself why. Let me be clear: if you don't need to defend meditation practices, you don't need to renounce them. Only those who are compelled to defend meditation practices must renounce them. There is no form of practice that is inherently good or bad, but any kind of attachment to anything will transform this into an obstruction. Again, Jiashan urges us to swing the sword directly. This means swinging it without attachment to the sword, without attachment to the act of striking. And Jiashan isn't urging you on here to make himself your master. Jiashan knows that if you really swing the sword directly, Jiashan himself will be struck down too. Nothing escapes the sword of enlightenment. Therefore, if you try to protect anything from it, the sword will become too heavy to even lift it in your hand (This sword is the true robe and bowl)
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The warrior who can swing the sword directly though, who are they? And how would you distinguish them? Shishuang tells us. You will know them by the fact that they have no country (If you wish to realize through meditation, what country will you realize in?) They genuinely do not abide in any place. And this is also where you will finally meet them.
Submitted March 02, 2023 at 06:07AM by wrathfuldeities https://ift.tt/pEFeMHh
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