Quotes from Peter Haskel's translations in Bankei Zen
Trying to stop thoughts is like a self-inflicted war or like washing away blood with more blood or a never-ending obsession:
“As long as you deliberately try to stop your rising thoughts, the thought of trying to stop them wars against the continually arising thoughts themselves, and there’s never an end to it. To give you an example, it would be like washing away blood with blood. Of course, you might get out the original blood; but the blood after that would stick, and the red never go away. Similarly, the original angry thoughts that you were able to stop may have come to an end, but the subsequent thoughts concerned with your stopping them won’t ever cease.
Not concerning oneself with stopping thoughts, or not stopping them, is way easier:
“‘Well,’ you may wonder, ‘then what can I do to stop them?’ Even if suddenly, despite yourself and wholly unawares, rage or anger should appear, or thoughts of clinging and craving arise, just let them come—don’t develop them any further, don’t attach to them. Without concerning yourself about whether to stop your rising thoughts or not to stop them, just don’t bother with them, and then there’s nothing else they can do but stop. You can’t have an argument with the fence if you’re standing there all alone! When there’s no one there to fight with, things can’t help but simply come to an end of themselves. [...]
Just don't attach yourself:
“At any rate, the main thing is always to be mindful of the Unborn Buddha Mind and not go cooking up thoughts of this or that on the ground of the Unborn, attaching to things that come your way, changing the Buddha Mind for thoughts. As long as you don’t waver in this, no thoughts will arise, whether good or bad, and so, of course, there won’t be any need to try to stop them, either. Then, aren’t you neither creating nor destroying? That’s nothing but the Unborn and Imperishable Buddha Mind, so you’d better grasp this clearly!”
Religious concepts are imaginary:
“Outside, hell, hungry ghosts, karma, demons and fiery carts simply don’t exist.
Trying to stop thoughts or emotions is like trying to split your own mind in two:
“What’s more, to try to stop your rising thoughts, holding them back and suppressing them, is a bad idea. The original, innate Buddha Mind is one alone—it’s never two. But when you try to stop your rising anger, [your mind] is split between your angry thoughts and your thoughts of stopping them. It’s as if you’re chasing after someone who is running away, except that you’re both the runner and the one pursuing him as well!
If you haven't understood that trying to stop thoughts is wrong, shame on you:
“So the idea of trying to stop [your thoughts] is wrong. Since that’s how it is, when you no longer bother about those rising thoughts, not trying either to stop them or not to stop them, why, that’s the Unborn Buddha Mind. That’s what I’ve been telling about just now in such detail. Weren’t you listening? [If you weren’t,] it’s a shame!”
Trying to stop thoughts is dualism:
“When you try to stop your rising thoughts, you create a duality between the mind that does the stopping and the mind that’s being stopped, so you’ll never have peace of mind. Just have faith that thoughts don’t originally exist, but only arise and cease temporarily in response to what you see and hear, without any actual substance of their own.”
There's no special way to abide in the Buddha-mind:
A layman said: “Some years ago, I asked you what I should do to stop wayward thoughts from arising, and you instructed me: ‘Let them just arise or cease as they will.’ But, since then, although I’ve taken your advice to heart, I’ve found it hard to let my thoughts just arise or cease like this.”
The Master told him: “The reason you’re having difficulty is that you think there’s some special way to let your thoughts just arise or cease as they will.”
Submitted August 20, 2016 at 07:58PM by meekale http://ift.tt/2bEI35G
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