Buddhism (Zen) is an easily understood, energy-saving teaching; [but] people strain themselves.
Seeing them helpless, the ancients told people to try meditating quietly for a moment.
These are good words, but later people did not understand the meaning of the ancients; they went off and sat like lumps with knitted brows and closed eyes, suppressing body and mind, waiting for enlightenment.
How stupid! How foolish!
An early teacher said, "Is it the wind ringing, or is it the chimes ringing?”
He should have stopped right there, but he went on to vex others by saying,
“It is not the wind or the chimes ringing, but only your mind ringing.”
What further opportunity to study do you seek?
When Zen came to China, an early teacher said, “It is not the wind or the flag moving; it is your minds moving.”
The ancient teacher gave this testimony; why don’t you understand?
Just because of subject and object.
That is why it is said, “The objective is defined based on the subjective; since the objective is arbitrarily defined, it produces your arbitrary subjectivity, producing difference where there was neither sameness nor difference.”
People nowadays talk about certain discernment, but how do you discern with certainty?
...
As a matter of fact, letting go all at once is precisely how to discern with certainty—there will be no different focus at any time.
You get up in the morning, dress, wash your face, and so on; you call these miscellaneous thoughts, but all that is necessary is that there be no perceiver or perceived when you perceive—no hearer or heard when you hear, no thinker or thought when you think.
[Zen] is very easy and very economical; it spares effort, but you yourself waste energy and make your own hardships.
If you do not see the ease, then sit for a while and examine the principle. Since you have come here to study Zen, don’t come here with imagination and figuring like you find in other places; just step back and look, and you will surely understand.
When I bring up one thing and another for you as I do, you think I am explaining Zen; but the minute you go into action you make it into worldly convention.
Only if you keep your attention on it will you be able to make a discovery; but as I see, most of you just remain in eyes and ears, seeing and hearing, sensing and feeling—you’ve already missed the point!
You must find the nondiscriminatory mind without departing from the discriminating mind; find that which has no seeing or hearing without departing from seeing and hearing.
This does not mean that “no seeing” is a matter of sitting on a bench with your eyes closed.
You must have nonseeing right in seeing.
This is why it is said,
“Live in the realm of seeing and hearing, yet unreached by seeing and hearing; live in the land of thought, yet untouched by thought.”
GS: Foyan says, "Since you have come here to study Zen ..."; some people can't even get that far, much less crack a book and ask themselves about the sound of the chimes and the movement of the flag.
They just jump to "explaining Zen" and jump 10,000 miles past it.
Not even Foyan was explaining Zen.
So why are you here?
If the answer doesn't involve "studying Zen" then why should anyone care?
Submitted April 15, 2020 at 07:06PM by xXx_GreenSage_xXx https://ift.tt/3enSla2
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