The Gateless Gate: "Bring your mind here and I will pacify it for you," replied Bodhidharma.

The Gateless Gate: Bodhidharma's Mind-Pacifying [41st case]

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Bodhidharma sat facing the wall.

The Second Patriarch stood in the snow.

He cut off his arm and presented it to Bodhidharma, crying, "My mind has no peace as yet! I beg you, master, please pacify my mind!"

"Bring your mind here and I will pacify it for you," replied Bodhidharma.

"I have searched for my mind, and I cannot take hold of it," said the Second Patriarch.

"Now your mind is pacified," said Bodhidharma.

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Mumon's Comment

The broken-toothed old Hindu came so importantly, thousands of miles over the sea.

This was raising waves where there was no wind.

In his last years he induced enlightenment in his disciple, who, to make matters worse, was defective in the six roots.

Why, Shasanro did not know for ideographs.

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Mumon's Verse

Coming east, directly pointing,

You entrusted the Dharma, and trouble arose;

The clamor of the monasteries

Is all because of you.

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Wandering Ronin commentary and questions: "Bring your mind here and I will pacify it for you," replied Bodhidharma. What in the grand and endless totality of mind can this sword of Bodhidharma's not cut through? It cuts directly through any and all thoughts, worries, troubles and delusions if you are fearless enough to let it. How deep will you allow the blade to penetrate, and how far are you willing to go? Will you let it get to the very heart of the matter, and take away all conditioned things and conceptual thinking from you? Has the Void in fact completely become Void?

Bring your mind here and I will pacify it for you. Yet let us bear in mind that swords of this exceptional nature cut both ways. Thoughts of peace, tranquility, compassion, goodness... these are still fully within the realm of conceptual thinking; if you haven't cut those away too, then your mind has still not been pacified. Once you believe that mind has been pacified, there is a tranquility before tranquility and a peace before peace, yet go further and cut those away too, as even enlightenment itself must be relinquished.

Submitted October 02, 2019 at 07:21PM by WanderingRoninXIII https://ift.tt/2oxnRgi