Sengcan, Huang po, Huineng.

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"Stop talking, stop thinking, and there is nothing you will not understand. Return to the root and you will find Meaning." Sengcan.

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"People are scared to empty their minds fearing that they will be engulfed by the void. What they don't realize is that their own mind is the void." Huang po.

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"When our mind works freely without any hindrance, and is at liberty to 'come' or to 'go', we attain Samadhi of Prajna, or liberation. Such a state is called the function of 'thoughtlessness'. But to refrain from thinking of anything, so that all thoughts are suppressed, is to be Dharma-ridden, and this is an erroneous view." Huineng.

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T. O. M's comment.

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Its a very subtle thing, the masters are telling us to stop thinking, stop talking, yet to actively do this, is an erroneous view.

Its hard for me to describe, let's say we are doing breathing meditation... in meditation we are supposed to just notice thoughts arising, and not to try and suppress them, just notice and return to the sensation of breathing..

If we actually try and "stop" thinking, it just gets harder to do, so we get accustomed to just noticing the thoughts arise and subside, and see them for what they are, just an image, an illusion, a momentary distraction from where our attention is focused.

I've had years of practice, battling with thoughts, before I even knew anything about zen meditation.. I had a psychotic breakdown due to drug abuse back in the nineties, and after this breakdown, I used to be wracked with paranoid thoughts, even to the point that I used to think that other people could somehow sense them, and would get so agitated, it used to severely affect my social interaction. I know how, trying to stop thoughts by thinking, would only exasperate the thinking process.

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So, I have a little insight into the notion of how thoughts and ideas can delude and harm us, how they can spiral out of control and cloud our judgements.

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Its a very subtle thing and it took me years to overcome this way of thinking..

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I did it by not paying attention to the thoughts, and focusing on what was real, by gradually attuning my focus on my body, or my physical actions.. Just paying less attention to the thinking process..

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Now I can see the real virtue in what those masters were saying.. And that's why I harp on about this one teaching in particular.. Because it has a real world Implication for me.

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So, Sengcan was right, and I learned this through my own life, stop thinking, stop talking, and you will understand.

Submitted February 18, 2022 at 02:06PM by transmission_of_mind https://ift.tt/1mIeSLi