Yung Chia’s Song of Enlightenment - Verse’s 23 & 24

Yongjia Xuanjue, Also mentioned as Yung Chia, Hsuan-Chueh, One-night Chueh and The Enlightened one who spent a night with the Patriarch… Huineng

Yung Chia’s brief encounter with Huineng was more like a confrontation rather than a confirmation. Circling the Patriarch 3 times and without making obeisance … what a start!

RedPine Translation (comes with no punctuation marks)

Verse 23 Anyone awake knows there’s nothing to do In a world of conditioned things it’s different Giving alms for a better rebirth still attached to form You may as well shoot an arrow into the sky

Verse 24 It’s momentum spent the arrow falls to earth Resulting in another disappointing life Unlike the door to the real and unconditioned Once you step through you’re in the Buddha realm.

Yung Chia’s encounter with Huineng reminds me of Bodhidharmas encounter with Emperor Wu. Is Yung Chia referring to Merit in these verses?

My understanding of these two verses is that Pointing (Aiming,Directing,Seeking) towards doing good for merit, such as giving Alms, Building temples, Reciting sutras, Obeisance and things that one would consider are on the condition of merit for a better rebirth, isn’t true merit. Is this merit not just Saṅkhāra - refers to conditioned phenomena generally but specifically to all mental "dispositions" - Wiki

“Shooting an arrow into the sky, it’s momentum spent” came across as Effort pointing,aiming and seeking in this way, will leave you disappointed. The Diamond sutra (A.F Price and Wong Trans) makes a lot of references to this effort in Verse 28 Attachment to Rewards of Merit

“Unlike the door to the real and unconditioned” I feel Yung Chia is referring to Non-dualism here, A reality not based upon conditioned things/forms

“Once you step through, you’re in the Buddha realm” I have nothing to say about this, other than it’s the best full stop ever used

Thanks to Mortonlast and his YouTube Channel SunfireZen. I listened to his Narration of it before buying myself a copy! It’s a lovely little book of 4 line verses, short but full of contemplation.

What do you get from the verses?

Submitted February 24, 2022 at 08:06PM by S1L3NTASSAS1N https://ift.tt/bOdotu3