Huang Bo journal part 1 (concept of Mind)

Going on a Blofeld, Huang Po deep trip, analysis style. Will be an irregular, journal type thing of notes that I can return to, and perhaps others too. Opinions on formatting encouraged.

OBS: When talking about certain paragraphs I will not include full paragraph quotes as it would bloat the post. I will refer instead to the parts as well as the numbering within the parts as the book is structured. Will also try to follow the post philosophy of "better with many small parts than a few big ones."

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Starting off with the concept of Mind (capital M): Huang Po (or Blofeld transl. of hsing rather) uses this frequently and interchangably with One Mind and Absolute throughout the book*.*

Blofeld says on this:

1. "Mind symbolizes the inexpressible reality beyond the reach of conceptual thought*."*
2. "he [Huang Po] more than once explain that the One Mind is not really mind at all*.*"

My comments:

• Huang Po uses Mind to refer to "everything", including thoughts and whatever is produced by thoughts. He then says that the problem sentient beings have is that they're attached to form (a particular way in which a thing exists or appears) and start to look for Mind which causes them to lose their Buddhahood. So sentient beings with their thoughts (all part of Mind) conceptualize a particular way in which Mind appears and go look for Mind within Mind.
  I think the key here is the attachment to form. Without the attachment to form there would be no looking for Mind in the first place and sentient beings would rather "dwell in Mind".
• Since Mind is everything, there's no lack of anything. If there is the concept of lacking, then there is again attachment to form: a want for a particular way in which a thing appears that is not appearing according to this want. Looking for this particular way of appearance is again fruitless, since nothing exists besides Mind. To realize into buddhahood then, is to realize that there is nothing lacking.
• Conceptual thought shows up for the first time and Huang Po uses it a lot. He uses it interchangably with "realization" as far as I can tell. That is, the sudden and immediate end of conceptual thought is to realize into buddhahood. So he use conceptual thought in the sense of "how you want something to appear." Note that he press on how this must happen all at once, gradually trying to rid oneself of conceptual thought will not work he says.

Submitted February 08, 2020 at 07:47PM by BeechAndBirch https://ift.tt/379rg5F