Someone asked Xuedou, "What is the living meaning of Zen?"
Xuedou said, "The mountains are high, the oceans are wide."
The original nature is the ocean. Vast and all-encompassing, the surface features of the waves are distinguished from one another by the discriminating mind, even though it is all just water. The ocean is the essence of mind, the waves are its activity. Fundamentally it is always the same; and yet, Zen masters teach about 'enlightenment'. What is it? Simple. Linji said, "If you can just stop this mind that rushes around moment to moment, looking for something, and you'll be no different from the ancestors and the Buddhas." Stop following the waves of karmic inertia and the ocean becomes calm and clear. Once you've penetrated the great matter, you can follow the waves at your leisure without being pulled awry. Mazu said, "When successive thoughts do not await one another, and each thought dies peacefully away, this is called absorption in the oceanic reflection."
Therefore we might say that when the simile of the ocean is used, Zen masters are often going from the internal to the external. By contrast, the mountains - impassible, fixed, and towering - are often used as a metaphor for a place of solitude, stillness and serenity. They are the dwelling places of sages that Zen students seek to penetrate (even though they are impenetrable). When Zen masters speak about mountains they are often going from the external to the internal. One leaves the hustle and bustle of the ordinary world to "enter the mountains", sometimes literally. One pierces the heavens and dwells in a spiritual realm.
Thus, one's original nature is void and calm - but "the wind of externality" stirs up the waves, one comes out of the depths. One who abandons worldly concerns to seek the Zen path heads for the heights, but cannot abide in that kind of stillness either. He must depart from the heights. Hongzhi said that the true mind of Zen has no extremes, no edges and no center. As such, one doesn't have to seek the extremes to find Zen, although in the course of studying Zen, one may have to explore both. Yuanwu said, "Just still the thoughts in your mind. It is good to do this right in the midst of disturbance. When you are working on this, penetrate the heights and depths."
There are a few cases we might consider that discuss plumbing the heights and depths. First, there is the case of Elder Ting on the bridge:
Once in Chen Chou, as Elder Ting was returning from a vegetarian feast, he rested on a bridge. There he met three Buddhist monks.
One of them asked, "What is the meaning of 'Where the river of Ch'an is deep, you must plumb the very bottom'?" Ting grabbed him and was about to throw him off the bridge, when the other two Buddhists frantically tried to rescue him, saying, "Stop! Stop! He has offended you, Elder but we hope you will be merciful."
Ting said, "If not for you two, I would have let him plumb the very bottom."
And then, the case of the Hundred Foot Pole in the Wumenguan:
Sekiso asked: "How can you proceed on from the top of a hundred-foot pole?" Another Zen teacher said: "One who sits on the top of a hundred-foot pole has attained a certain height but still is not handling Zen freely. He should proceed on from there and appear with his whole body in the ten parts of the world."
Wumen's verse mentions that jumping from the pole would be suicide. In koan study, the moment where one lets go of the sense of self is sometimes called 'leaping from the hundred food pole'; thus it is 'suicide'. What are we to make of these examples, that indicate the 'deadliness' of traversing the heights and depths? Perhaps the conception put forward by Daoist philosophers of the substance of reality being 'subtle', 'hidden', or 'low' played a part. "The highest virtue of the Dao is like water," says Laozi, who goes on to describe water as always seeking the lowest level, which is abhorred by human beings. The nature of the Dao was always to return to the source - things arise, then decline. Thus, one arises from the source into the mundane, then seeks to transcend further to a higher understanding - but this higher understanding includes the knowledge that water always flows back into the ocean.
Mi-an said, "The shortcut of Zen is to leave the present and directly experience the state before birth, before the division of wholeness. When you accomplish this, you are like a dragon in the water, like a tiger in the mountains."
Becoming a formidable being in whatever environment one finds oneself in - a veritable force of nature - is the mark of one in full possession of Zen. To employ the cliche, there really is no coming and no going, and all the hills and valleys are the same measurement. All are level. Direct experience of extremes reveals their relativity. One leaps from great heights, walks on the bottom of the ocean, and enters the tallest mountains in order to discover this.
To conclude the final part of this little series, I have enclosed another little basket of quotes to chew on, and some poems for the soul. I hope these considerations have helped to inform your future study.
Shitou said, "I would rather sink to the bottom of the sea for endless eons than seek liberation through all the saints of the universe."
Xiatang said, "Don't let either good or bad thoughts enter into your thinking, forget about both Buddhism and things of the world. Let go of body and mind, like letting go over a cliff."
Huanglong said, "To drink up the ocean and turn a mountain upside down is an ordinary affair for a Zennist."
Yuanwu also said, "[Zen Adepts] walk on the bottom of the deepest ocean, uncontaminated, with free minds, acting normally, indistinguishable from the average person."
Huizhen [a Vinaya/Pureland Master] said, "When people do not understand, I use the Zen style of teaching."
Someone asked Huizhen, “Do the results of religious practice vary according to the extent of realization?”
The Master answered. "When a drop of water falls from the cliff, it knows the morning sea.”
Having slept in the mountains forever
the clouds are the mountains' friends
the deeper the mountains
the better the clouds
playing all day until sunset
the moon rises from the peaks
beyond my study
a spring washes the rocks below the steps
it's here that my mind becomes clear
the truth doesn't come from somewhere else
flying squirrels chatter in the cassia trees in fall
the wind dies and everything is silent
I keep thinking about Hung Yai's skill
I would visit him if he weren't across the sea.
what's taking my cloud carriage so long
leaning on my armrest I can only sigh.
— Li Pai (701-762)
I could hear a river
in the next valley over
crossing the ridge I found it
its transparent current
its submerged white boulders
the silent shadows
of a myriad peaks
rock cliffs lined with unfading flowers
and impossibly lush jade-green cedars
how could I focus on the rippling water
looking down, then up at swirling clouds?
— Ou-yang Hsiu (1037)
essentialsaltsbook notechandex - Oh, by the way, there was also some guy named Qingyuan who said something about Mountains and Waters once... can't remember the quote for the life of me, though!
Submitted January 25, 2018 at 03:30AM by essentialsalts http://ift.tt/2DGh3mv
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