From the pointer:
Whoever would uphold the teaching of our school must be a
brave spirited fellow; only with the ability to kill a man without
blinking an eye can one become Buddha right where he
stands
This will come into play later.
The case:
I'll summarize the first bit: Hsueh Feng is an active fellow. He would visit a lot of people to act as their rice steward. He went to Tung Shan nine times.
From the case:
When he arrived at Tung Shan, he served as the rice steward;
one day Tung Shan asked Hsueh Feng, "What are you doing?"
Hsueh Feng said, "Cleaning rice."
Shan asked, "Are you washing the grit to get rid of the rice, or are you washing the rice to
get rid of the grit?" Feng said, "Grit and rice are both removed
at once." Shan said, "What will everybody eat?" Feng then
overturned the basin. Shan said, "Your affinity lies with Te
Shan," and he directed Feng to go see him.
Tung Shan knew Te Shan would be up to the task of handling this fellow.
As soon as he got there, Hsueh Feng asked, "Does this student
have any share in this matter handed down from antiquity
as the fundamental vehicle?" Te Shan struck him a blow and
said, "What are you saying?" Because of this, Hsueh Feng had
an insight.
This reads like the usual Zen enlightenment story. Someone gets enlightened after taking a blow, but it doesn't end here, even though it goes on like this:
Later Hsueh Feng was snowed in on Tortoise Mountain (in
Hunan). He told Yen T'ou, "When Te Shan hit me, it was like
the bottom falling out of a bucket."
That sounds like he's claiming enlightenment. I think we've talked about bottoms falling out of buckets in recent threads. After the bottom's fallen out, you can't put anything in there anymore. But then Yen T'ou responded:
Yen T'ou shouted and said,
"Haven't you heard it said that what comes in through the gate
isn't the family treasure? You must let it flow out from your
own breast to cover heaven and earth; then you'll have some
small portion of realization." Suddenly Hsueh Feng was greatly
enlightened; he bowed and said to Yen T'ou, "Elder brother,
today on Tortoise Mountain I have finally attained the Path."
The insight Hsueh Feng had was what came in through the gate. But it is not the family treasure by itself.
I think everyone here has had insights.
I had a date last week and she told me about her Ayahuasca experience in South America. She was very excited to talk about it and told me about the insight she took away from it: "I realized that just because others around me are feeling emotions, I dont' have to feel the same emotions". I nodded along with that, not really knowing what to say. It didn't seem like such a big deal to me, but it obviously meant a lot to her.
I told my wife about this later on. She's well versed in child development. She laughed and said that this is something children figure out at the age of two.
Now, I'm not going to say this drug induced insight was wrong as such. But the intensity of the experience seems to have attached a lot of importance to the experience for her. I mean, she's still talking about it.
I had an insight into something last week. I talked about it in a thread I made. I've been going back to it, referring to it and making a nest out of it.
It's easy to do that with insights that seem important at the time.
But in this case, at least in my reading and I'm looking for feedback on this, Yen T'ou seemingly admonishes Hsueh Feng for making a nest out of his realization. This is where the pointer comes in. He's killing Hsueh Feng. He's taking the man's precious realization and with a single sentence he breaks it. Hsueh Feng isn't the same person anymore that he was when having it, so how could it still apply? That was just something that came through the family gate and cannot be called a treasure at all.
No treasure whatsoever is what these Ancients were talking about.
Submitted May 08, 2023 at 12:14PM by dota2nub https://ift.tt/xgR5cWr
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