Fencing with Huai-T'ang: Putting it to use in heated situations, startling the crowd.

Zen is not thought, the path has no achievement; yet if not thought it is not zen, and without achievement it is not the path.

At this point where do you arrive?

When you have cut through your conceptual faculty, how do you discriminate?

When you do not fall into consciousness, how do you approach?

As soon as you get into the clusters and elements, you're already a lifetime away.

What you must do is cover the whole universe, with no opinion about buddha or doctrine, bringing it up in the midst of sharp edges, putting it to use in heated situations.

Just trust in it thus, and naturally every step will thread on the real ground; you can hold still and be the master, go along with things or spurn things, setting out and setting aside according to the time.

When you turn upward, buddhas and devils disappear without a trace; mountains and seas vanish.

When you turn downward, clerics are clerics, lay folk are lay folk.

You transcend seeing and hearing, get rid of all dependence, and ride at leisure on top of sound and form, mastering that which startles the crowd.

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What about arriving at the midst of edges?

Submitted July 19, 2020 at 12:51PM by Karokuma https://ift.tt/30jfaFC