Anything possessing any signs is illusory

Q: Yet it is recorded that 'Whosoever possesses the thirty-two characteistic signs of a Buddha is able to deliver sentient beings'. How can you deny it?

A: Anything possessing any signs is illusory. It is by perceiving that all signs are no signs that you perceive the Tathagata. 'Buddha' and 'sentient beings' are both your own false conceptions. It is because you do not know real Mind that you delude yourselves with such objective concepts. If you will conceive of a Buddha, you will be obstructed by that buddha!!! And when you conceive of sentient beings, you will be obstructed by those beings. All such dualistic concepts as 'ignorant' and 'Enlightened', ' pure ' and 'impure', are obstructions. It is because your minds are hindered by them that the Wheel of the Law must be turned.' Just as apes spend their time throwing things away and picking them up a ain unceasingly, so it is with you and your learning. All you need is to give up your ' learning', your 'ignorant* and 'Enlightened', 'pure' and ' impure*, 'great' and 'little', your 'attachment' and ' activity ' . Such things are mere conveniences, mere ornaments within the One Mind. I hear you have studied the sutras of the twelve divisions of the Three Vehicles. They arc all mere empirical concepts. Really you must give them up — Huang Po

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“Followers of the Way, make no mistake! All the dharmas of this world and of the worlds beyond are without self-nature. Also, they are without produced nature. Th ey are just empty names, and these names are also empty. All you are doing is taking these worthless names to be real. Th at’s all wrong! Even if they do exist, they are nothing but states of dependent transformation, such as the dependent transformations of bodhi, nirvana, emancipation, the threefold body, the [objective] surroundings and the [subjective] mind, bodhisattvahood, and buddhahood. What are you looking for in these lands of dependent transformations! All of these, up to and including the Three Vehicles’ twelve divisions of teachings, are just so much waste paper to wipe off privy fi lth. Th e Buddha is just a phantom body, the patriarchs just old monks. — Linji Yixuan

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What else do you hold so dear?

Submitted February 13, 2022 at 07:02AM by jiyuunosekai https://ift.tt/rsfu5Gi