Gunabhadra:
Even if you practice the six pāramitās, expound the sutras, sit in meditation, and advance energetically practicing austerities, this is just called 'being good'; it is not called 'Dharma practice'. If you do not irrigate the karmic field with the water of desire, if you do not plant the seeds of consciousness there, this is called 'Dharma practice'.
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Those who understand reality do not see any difference between birth-and-death and nirvana, or ordinary and holy. Objects and knowledge are not two: inner truth and phenomena are fused. Real and conventional are viewed as equal; defilement and purity are one Suchness. Buddhas and sentient beings are fundamentally equal and at one. The Laṅkāvatāra Sutra says: "There is no nirvana in anything: no nirvana-buddha, no buddha-nirvana. It is detached from awakening and that which is awakened to, detached from both being and nothingness." The Great Path is fundamentally omnipresent, perfectly pure, and basically existent: it is not attained from causes. It is like the sun hidden behind floating clouds: when the clouds are gone, the sun appears by itself.
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All things are uncompounded. The sutra says: "The Buddha is not Buddha, nor does he save sentient beings. Sentient beings impose distinctions, and think that Buddha saves sentient beings: thus they do not realize this Mind, and they have no stability." With realization, there is awareness, and Great Function amid dependent origination, penetrating perfectly without obstruction: this is called 'Great Cultivation of the Path'. There is no duality between self and other. All practices are carried out at once: there is no before or after, and no in-between. It is called the Great Vehicle.
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Bodhidharma:
He said to Huike: "There is the Laṅkāvatāra Sutra, in four scrolls: if you practice according to it, you will naturally be liberated."
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The Great Teacher Bodhidharma would point to things and ask their meaning. He would just point to something - "What is it called? There is a multitude of things - question them all. Interchange their names, and with them changed, question them."
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He also said: "Does this body exist or not? What body is this body?"
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He also said: "The clouds in the sky can never stain the empty sky, but they can cover over the sky so that it is not bright and clear."
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Huike:
The Laṅkāvatāra Sutra says: "Shakyamuni contemplated in stillness, and thus left birth and death far behind. This is called 'not grasping'." Of call the enlightened ones of the ten directions, past and present, there is not one who became a buddha without a basis in sitting meditation.
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The Huayan (Flower Ornament) Sutra says: "It is as vast as the universe, as ultimate as the void. But it is also like a light in a jar that cannot illuminate the outside." Another simile is this: When clouds close in on all sides and the world is darkened, how can the sunlight be bright and clear? The sunlight has not been destroyed - it is just covered over and blocked off by the clouds. The pure reality-nature of sentient beings is also like this. It cannot become fully manifest precisely because layers upon layers of clouds - afflictions, the perceptions of false thoughts clinging to objects - cover over and block off the Path of the Sages. If false thoughts are not born, and you sit in silent purity, the sun of great nirvana is spontaneously bright and clear.
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I explain this True Dharma as it really is: ultimately it is no different from the real, profound inner truth. [Sentient beings] mistake the wish-fulfilling jewel for tiles and pebbles. When they empty out and realize for themselves that it is a real jewel, then ignorance and wisdom are equal and no different. You must realize that the myriad phenomena are all Thus. Out of pity for those with dualistic views, I take up a brush and write this. When you observe that your body is no different from the Buddha's, there is no need to search further for final nirvana.
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[From the Records of the Masters and Disciples of the Laṅkāvatāra School; from the records preserved at Dunhuang, predating any other Chan texts; compiled by Xuanze in 708 (or so it is claimed in the original preface affixed to the document), translated by J.C. Cleary]
In their own day, the figures who we would retroactively call the early Zen masters would have been known as the Laṅkāvatāra Masters. Bodhidharma's Treatise on Two Entries and Four Practices dates from this period; I have not included any material from it here because we've all seen it already and his other sayings are somewhat interesting. What we know about this school during this period is that it contains the first five Zen Patriarchs, as well as Gunabhadra, who translated the Laṅkāvatāra. We know that those who practiced in this tradition attributed great importance to Bodhidharma's treatise and passed their various commentaries around on it. They had cordial relations with other Buddhist traditions - indeed, they were the 'meditation school', not in the sense that it was a separate school from the rest of Chinese Buddhism, but rather where all the Buddhists would come to study meditation. Still, even here there are warnings against attachment to meditation or practice.
We should be careful in thinking we knew what these early Chan masters meant by 'meditation', 'purity', 'nirvana', etc. To have safer footing for determinations of that nature, I recommend the Laṅkāvatāra Sutra. We can safely conclude based on the evidence that it was Gunabhadra's version of the Laṅkāvatāra that Bodhidharma taught by, and that he told Huike was so central to his teaching. All of these early Chan masters were quoting sutras like crazy. Another thing I noticed was the ubiquitous metaphor of the sun behind the clouds... illuminating!
-es
Submitted December 01, 2017 at 10:20PM by essentialsalts http://ift.tt/2zFCH5n
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