Step Back and See

Foyan:

Xuansha remarked [after sitting silently on the high seat for awhile], “ Look! Today I have really helped them, but not a single one gets it. If I start flapping my lips, though, they immediately crowd around!” You come here seeking expedient techniques, seeking doctrines,r seeking peace and happiness. I have no expedient techniques to give people, no doctrine, no method of peace and happiness. Why? If there is any “expedient technique,” it has the contrary effect of burying you and trapping you.

...

Later, someone asked Xuefeng, “How is it when one’s vision is originally correct but distorted by teachers?” Xuefeng said, “ Confused encounter with the founder of Zen.” The seeker asked, “Where is one’s own vision?” Xuefeng said, “It is not gotten from a teacher.” This is the way you have to be before you attain realization.

Case 11 BCR goes like this:

Huang Po, instructing the community, said, "All of you people are gobblers of dregs; if you go on travelling around this way, where will you have Today? Do you know that there are no teachers of Ch'an in all of China?"

At that time a monk came forward and said, "Then what about those in various places who order followers and lead communities? "

Huang Po said, "I do not say that there is no Ch'an; it's just that there are no teachers. "

What is being looked for in all these words? Foyan gives instruction:

Of old it was said, “Enlightenment is always with people, but people subjectively pursue things.” In scripture it says, “If you can turn things around, they are the same as realization of suchness."

But how can things be turned around? It is also said, “All appearances are unreal; if you see appearances are not inherent characteristics, the you see realization of suchness.”

Just step back, stop mental machinations, and look closely. When suddenly you see, nothing can stop you.

Submitted September 12, 2020 at 07:24PM by surupamaerl https://ift.tt/3iBseOw