Frustration with the Zen literature.

Yesterday I did a post about Yuan, specifically on the topic of how words are just pointers, an explanation of Zen, and not fundamentally Zen in and of themselves, and as a Zen student I know this as a fundamental principle.

Why then do I return to the literature of Zen, day in and day out? What am I looking to find within the texts? A glimpse of an understanding of the self nature? A yearning for a the self of years ago, a more carefree and happy self? Aren't happy and sad also duality that is to be relinquished? Didn't Bodhidharma tell the reader to stop seeking?

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I'm like a Hamster going round on a wheel.

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Here is a little section from Foyan.

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"Whatever you are doing ... there is something that transcends the Buddhas and Zen Masters; but as soon as you want to understand it, it's not there. It's not really there; as soon as you try to gather your attention on it, you have already turned away from it.... Does this mean that you will realize it if you do not aim the mind and do not develop intellectual understanding? Far from it – you will fail even more seriously to realize it. Even understanding does not get it, much less not understanding!"

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What am I trying to realise, what am I trying to understand that pushes me towards these ancient texts and towards self inquiry?

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Foyan shows the reader here, that it is not as simple as just believing that you are already" The Buddha nature" or that "Ordinary mind is the Buddha". He goes on to say that a person will fail even more seriously to realise that which transcends the Buddha if a person does not aim the mind and develop an intellectual understanding, so how can I reconcile that statement with the one from Bodhidarma, encouraging a person to seek nothing?

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In the Bodhidharma Anthology, one point is made ( among many points, some for and some against) against Bodhidharmas teachings within a much later Zen text, that text being the Record of the orthodox lineage of the Dharma transmission, by Chi sung ( 1007 - 72)

Chi sung relegates Bodhidharmas Outline of practice, as just being an expedient means taught specifically for one of Bodhidharmas students, Tan lin, and goes on to say, " Even though Tan lin did in fact receive a transmission from Bodhidharma, in my opinion the patriarchal master at the time accorded with Tan lin's limited karmic propensities and spoke only in terms of expedient devices"

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It seems to me that the more a person understands Zen, the more confusing it is..

Submitted May 27, 2022 at 10:56AM by transmission_of_mind https://ift.tt/fAszGtM