Since you are already involved, stabilize and awaken your vital spirit in the effort to find out the truth.
-Foyan
Zhaozhou said, "Then go wash your bowl."
A lot of people say things like, "this is it; mind is Buddha; everything is a natural flow—why do anything at all?" Buddhism is not like this.
When washing a bowl, what is the thing being washed? Not the bowl itself—its already clean!
How can a bowl be dirty? It can have dirt on it—out of practicality, for want to use the bowl to eat with, we clean the dirt off. The dirt isn't bad, the bowl isn't dirty—we just want to use the bowl for a bowl's purpose. So we clean the dirt off.
In Buddhism, we can learn to see ourselves like this—not dirty, but for the sake of practical purposes, we wipe off the dirt.
What is the dirt? Filler, distractions—blindness, blurriness. Intoxication.
How to wipe dirt away? There are many methods, but the fastest is sobriety. Then, it is to find someone sober, and enlist their aid. Then, it is to read books about the sobriety of others, which accrues small merit, but not none.
The least effective is ignorance—holding mental discussions:
"Does this count? Does that count? I'm not this bad—I don't have to be that good."
Foyan and Zhaozhou added to what the Buddha said; sobriety is the same as enlightenment.
It just might take a little elbow grease.
Submitted March 10, 2022 at 05:53AM by surupamaerl2 https://ift.tt/RCiOrEc
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