Mind is like the void in which there is no confusion or evil, as when the sun wheels through it shining upon the four corners of the world

Mind is like the void in which there is no confusion or evil, as when the sun wheels through it shining upon the four corners of the world. For, when the sun rises and illuminates the whole earth, the void gains not in brilliance; and when the sun sets, the void does not darken. The phenomena of light and dark alternate with each other, but the nature of the void remains unchanged. So it is with the mind of the Buddha and of sentient beings. If you look upon the Buddha as presenting a pure, bright, or Enlightened appearance, or upon sentient beings as presenting a foul, dark, or mortal-seeming appearance, these conceptions resulting from attachment to form will keep you from supreme knowledge, even after the passing of as many aeons as there are sands in the Ganges. There is only the One Mind and not a particle of anything else on which to lay hold, for this Mind is the Buddha. If you students of the Way do not awake to this Mind substance, you will overlay Mind with conceptual thought, you will seek the Buddha outside yourselves, and you will remain attached to forms, pious practices and so on, all of which are harmful and not at all the way to supreme knowledge.

• Huangbo, The Zen Teaching of Huang Po translated by John Blofeld.

Submitted July 30, 2017 at 11:44PM by Dillon123 http://ift.tt/2heyIrp