If an ordinary man, when he is about to die, could only see the five elements of consciousness as void; the four physical elements as not constituting an ‘I’; the real Mind as formless and neither coming nor going; his nature as something neither commencing at his birth nor perishing at his death, but as whole and motionless in its very depths; his Mind and environmental objects as one—if he could really accomplish this, he would receive Enlightenment in a flash. He would no longer be entangled by the Triple World; he would be a World-Transcendor. He would be without even the faintest tendency towards rebirth. If he should behold the glorious sight of all the Buddhas coming to welcome him, surrounded by every kind of gorgeous manifestation, he would feel no desire to approach them. If he should behold all sorts of horrific forms surrounding him, he would experience no terror. He would just be himself, oblivious of conceptual thought and one with the Absolute. He would have attained the state of unconditioned being. This, then, is the fundamental principle.
(Huangbo)
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From The Zen Teachings of Huang Po:
“If one loses the power of transcending conceptual thought, attachment to form will drag them back into the phenomenal world, thus creating the karma that leads to rebirth.”
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(Bankei:)
Now, unless you become Buddhas in your present lives, you’ll fall into the realms of the hungry ghosts or animals. Once you’ve fallen into an animal existence, it will be hard for you ever to become Buddhas, not even in hundreds of millions of ages. It’s easy to see why. You could lead a cow or horse in front of me here, and I could give it the same teaching that I give you. But would the animal understand it? Of course not. Once you’ve become an animal, it’s too late. You can’t understand then about things like Buddha or Dharma. It transmigrated and came into this sorry pass because in its previous existence the aspiration to become a Buddha didn’t arise. Now that each of you has heard about how the Buddha-mind works, you should start being unborn today and that way avoid transmigrating. (Waddell, 96)
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You were born into the human world for one reason —so you could become Buddhas. If you miss this chance and fall into hell, much greater suffering awaits you, as you transmigrate endlessly, being born and dying over and over again, through many lives, in many different worlds. (Waddell, p.104)
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When you turn this unborn Buddha-mind into a state of ignorance because of your parent or child, inwardly you’re living as a first-rate animal. This is true during your lifetime, but even after you die, you’ll fall directly into an animal existence, where parent and child are doomed constantly to fight each other tooth and nail. (Waddell, 82)
Submitted May 12, 2019 at 03:24PM by UhExistence http://bit.ly/2vROVr9
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