Bodhidharma came from the West and directly pointed to the human mind, to see essential nature and realize Buddhahood; this is undeniably direct and quintessential, but when seen with the true eye it is already way off—he had no choice but to temporarily make medicine for a dead horse.
This very mind to which he pointed directly is just what the Buddha could not quite explain in forty-nine years of speaking in every way.
It is extremely fine, extremely subtle—rarely does anyone attain this true bloodline.
This mind cannot be transmitted—it is only self-realized and self-understood.
When you get to where there is no confusion or enlightenment, it is just ordinary wearing clothes and eating food, without so much mystic understanding or ways of interpretation clogging your chest anymore, so you are clean and free.
An ancestral teacher said, “When uniformly equanimous, everything passes away of itself.”
Only then do you attain great capability; when you get to the border of life and death, you are profoundly still and silent, with no more change at all.
Just being so, you are like a polar mountain—isn’t this essential?
In recent years, brethren who come to study may say they are traveling, but it is like pouring cold water on a rock—wherever they go, they are just indulging in imagination and memorization, taking contention to be ordinary.
They are truly pitiful.
People who travel for the right reason are never like this; seeing how sages since time immemorial carried their bundles from community to company, associating with genuine teachers for ten or twenty years, they retreat into themselves, like cold ashes or dead trees, closely investigating the bit at the root of it all, the point of essential contact with reality.
Only then can they let go, come what may.
These are called patchrobed monks who have completed their task, eminent travelers.
If your state of mind is not thoroughly clear, how can you stop arousing and stirring thought twenty-four hours a day, all over the place, like a thousand waves, myriad breakers—how can you dissolve it away?
Here, if you have no penetration to freedom, you are just an ignorant thief pilfering the food supply.
This is what master Linji called blind bald soldiers.
Robbing and thieving, they steal until their whole bodies are red bones; when suddenly their lives come to an end, all their usual cleverness and wit is of no use at all when the light of their eyes falls to the ground.
Even if you have performed countless meritorious deeds over multiple lifetimes, so much the less your hope of transcending life and death.
You just attain human and celestial rewards, and then when the rewards end, as before there is no way out.
If you want to fathom the age of space, throughout the future, so your capability is inexhaustible, you should immediately let your mind be empty; if you can’t thoroughly realize this path, you should take up your great longstanding vow, choose a genuine teacher, put down your baggage and spend the rest of your life investigating this case.
Just beware of being inconsistent; your mouth may talk of studying Chan, but in your gut you won’t do it at all.
In this case, it is better to go back to the beginning and read the teachings sincerely, working on purification, so you won’t lose your humanity in the future.
This is what an ancient worthy was referring to when he said, “Talking ten feet is not as good as practicing an inch.”
But now in monasteries all over those called teachers transmit the school of mind directly pointed out—after all, how is this mind transmitted?
How can it be described?
There has recently emerged a class of devil—in the teachings these are described as bad companions—each expounding different interpretations, claiming to benefit people.
Some teach having people stop and rest, not thinking at all, quickly eliminating active thought as soon as it occurs.
Some teach people to be totally unconcerned, not even burning incense or performing prostrations.
Some just have people rationally understand the ancients, just like a bumbling professor.
Some refer to ancient adepts’ holding forth with naked hearts and call it setting up schools.
Some see students come and manage to say something that seems appropriate, then in half a day ask them about another saying; the students then speak further, and if they agree they immediately declare these brothers have an entry.
But tell me, do these sorts of ‘benefits’ actually accord with direct pointing to mind?
This is why master Fojian said, “Most teachers nowadays are indirectly pointing to mind and explaining nature to be Buddha.”
The true bloodline of Linji, from Baizhang at Master Ma’s shout down through the generations up till the present, not only realize the life root of the great ancestral teachers, but also thoroughly realize the life pulse of untold, inexpressible hundreds of thousands of myriads of millions of incalculable Buddhas and masters, without the slightest deviation.
Baizhang found Huangbo, Huangbo found Linji, Linji entrusted Sansheng, saying, “Who knew my treasury of the eye of truth would perish with this blind donkey?”
If you can see through this saying, how could there be any more “Linji Sect”?
Eminent Dehui, you have followed me dutiful to the path, rigorously pursuing the ancient way, tirelessly investigating the matter under the patch robe.
This can truly be called travel that is not in vain.
If you want to understand easily, at the arousal of mind and stirring of thought twenty-four hours a day, at this very stirring of thought be immediately open and empty so it cannot be grasped, like empty space, without even any form of empty space, outside and inside one, cognition and objects both disappearing, mystery and understanding both gone, past present and future equal.
When you get to this state, you are what is called a free wayfarer beyond study and without contrivance.
Then you must also know there is what Wuzu said.
Since the eminent has lit incense and made a sincere request, I have written this for his practice. 8/15/1141
Submitted March 04, 2022 at 07:29AM by NothingIsForgotten https://ift.tt/0tC3klK
No comments:
Post a Comment