Master Zhenjing said to an assembly,
Buddhism does not go along with human sentiments. Elders everywhere talk big, all saying, 'I know how to meditate, I know the Way!' But tell me, do they understand or not? For no reason they sit in pits of crap fooling spirits and ghosts. When people are like this, what crime is there is killing them by the thousands and feeding them to the dogs?
There is also a kind of Chan follower who is charmed by those foxes, even with eyes open, not even realizing it themselves. They wouldn't object even if they poured piss over their heads.
You are all individuals; why should you accept this kind of treatment? How should you be yourself?
Zen doesn't care about your feelings.
It doesn't matter what it "seems" like to anyone ... it matters what Zen is (and is not).
This post is inspired by the various times I see people posting or recommending Buddhist, non-dual, or esoteric material because it “sounds like Zen.”
As I’ve mentioned before, to people that don’t know what Zen is, a lot of stuff “sounds like Zen.” That’s not a valid metric for being on-topic.
There’s lots of pseudoscience and BS out there based upon people’s ignorant feelings about how stuff “seems” to them.
For example … Ancient Egyptian Helicopters!
Oftentimes, some of us in this community refer to Zen-adjacent texts as “fanfic”.
“Fanfic” or “Fan Fiction” is:
fictional writing written in an amateur capacity by fans, unauthorized by, but based on an existing work of fiction. The author uses copyrighted characters, settings, or other intellectual properties from the original creator(s) as a basis for their writing. Fan fiction ranges from a couple of sentences to an entire novel, and fans can retain the creator's characters and settings and/or add their own. It is a form of fan labor. Fan fiction can be based on any fictional (and occasional non-fictional) subject.
A good example of Zen fanfic is the so-called “Platform Sutra” which is fictionally attributed to HuiNeng, the 6th patriarch.
You can see my write-up of why the Platform Sutra is fanfic [here] but to summarize:
The Platform Sutra underwent various redactions. Though its recollection has been attributed to Fa-hai, a student of Huineng, its origins are not clear:
The early development of the Platform Sutra is shrouded in the mists of time, and we will probably never know much for certain about it. The Dunhuang version of the text, the earliest complete edition we have, is almost certainly a product of a long evolution with elements coming together from several different Chan groups with different agendas, as the uneven character of the text and its internal inconsistencies attest.
The canonical Zen texts (see [here]) do not share the same level of uneven character or internal inconsistencies despite also being amalgamations of revised documents. In fact, some of these issues are even addressed within the texts themselves, which speak to a level of consistency and coherency not found in the “fanfic” works.
For example:
The ninth generation master at Deshan in Ding province was Great Master Yuanming; his initiatory name was Yuanmi. Among Yunmen's successors, only this master's lineage was most widespread. This master invented the “three phrases”--”containing the universe,” “cutting off all streams,” and “following the waves”--those who nowadays transmit them as the three phrases of Yunmen are not careful in their research.
That’s WanSong in the Book of Serenity setting the record straight on some historical flim-flam.
What’s interesting to note is that it doesn’t matter whether YunMen said this or DeShan 2 … the “three phrases” are understood by any Zen Master.
The sort of conflicts we see in the fanfic are doctrinal … and usually focused on the notion of practices or methods of achievement.
This is probably where we see the MOST consistency across Zen texts:
HuangBo:
Enlightenment springs from Mind, regardless of your practice of the six pāramitās and the rest. All such practices are merely expedients for handling ‘concrete' matters when dealing with the problems of daily life.
Even Enlightenment, the Absolute, Reality, Sudden Attainment, the Dharmakāya and all the others down to the Ten Stages of Progress, the Four Rewards of virtuous and wise living and the State of Holiness and Wisdom are—every one of them—mere concepts for helping us through saṁsāra; they have nothing to do with the real Buddha-Mind.
Since Mind is the Buddha, the ideal way of attainment is to cultivate that Buddha-Mind.
Only avoid conceptual thoughts, which lead to becoming and cessation, to the afflictions of the sentient world and all the rest; then you will have no need of methods of Enlightenment and suchlike.
…
Since Mind is the Buddha, it embraces all things, from the Buddhas at one extreme to the meanest of belly-crawling reptiles or insects at the other. All these alike share the Buddha-Nature and all are of the substance of the One Mind.
So, after his arrival from the West, Bodhidharma transmitted naught but the Dharma of the One Mind.
He pointed directly to the truth that all sentient beings have always been of one substance with the Buddha.
He did not follow any of those mistaken “methods of attainment”.
And if you could only achieve this comprehension of your own Mind, thereby discovering your real nature, there would assuredly be nothing for you to seek, either.
LinJi:
Outside of mind there is nothing, and what is within mind is also unattainable. What are you looking for?
All of you people everywhere talk of having cultivation and having realization, but don’t make this mistake. Even if you gain something from cultivation, it is just the karma of birth and death.
You say you cultivate the six perfections and the myriad practices, but as I see it you are just building karma.
When you seek Buddha and seek the Dharma, you are creating hellish karma.
When you seek to be bodhisattvas, you are also creating karma.
When you read the sutras, you are also creating karma.
The buddhas and ancestral teachers were people without concerns. Thus they make nothing but pure karma, whether they are in the defiled realm of contrived action, or in the stainless realm without contrived action.
There are a certain kind of blind shave-pates who eat their fill of food and then go to sit in meditation. They grab hold of wayward thoughts and do not let them go on. Weary of noise, they seek quietude.
These are not Buddhist methods.
The ancestral teacher [Shenhui of Heze] said: “If you fixate your mind and contemplate stillness, hold up your mind for outer awareness and hold in your mind for inner realization, freeze your mind and enter stable concentration, this is all contrived activity.”
It is the person in you who is listening to the Dharma this way right now.
How can you try to cultivate this person or realize him or adorn him?
He is not something that can be cultivated or adorned. If we would have him adorned, in fact all things are what adorn him.
YuanWu in the Blue Cliff Record:
Originally Te Shan was a lecturing monk, expounding the Diamond Cutter Scripture in western Shu (Szechuan). According to what it says in that teaching, in the process of the knowledge attained after diamond-like concentration, one studies the majestic conduct of Buddhas for a thousand aeons and studies the refined practices of Buddhas for ten thousand aeons before finally fulfilling Buddhahood.
On the other hand, the "southern devils" at this time were saying "Mind itself is Buddha." Consequently Te Shan became very incensed and went traveling on foot, carrying some commentaries; he went straight to the South to destroy this crew of devils. You see from how aroused he got what a fierce keen fellow he was.
These quotes span time and space and yet there is a consistency.
NO practices.
NO methods.
Sure, you can “study” Zen and “practice” Zen … but what does that mean?
Zen has no method and no practice … to practice it is to avoid creating methods and practices.
Zen has no dharma and no doctrine … to practice that is to avoid creating a dharma and a doctrine out of Zen teachings.
As HuangBo says:
The fundamental doctrine of the Dharma is that there are no dharmas, yet that this doctrine of no-dharma is in itself a dharma; and now that the No-Dharma Doctrine has been transmitted, how can the doctrine of the Dharma be a dharma?
Whoever understands the meaning of this deserves to be called a monk, one skilled at “Dharma-practice”.
It’s very simple and the consistency is self-evident.
And since it’s already present in the canonical texts, why would anyone want to try and legitimize texts which are of dubious character without referring to the canon?
Usually, the answer is because they are struggling with “no practices” or “no doctrines” and want to try and smuggle in practices or doctrines.
It’s not a matter of a “dogmatic adherence to certain texts” (as people like to claim), but rather, a baseline of honesty.
For example, this next excerpt comes from the Lankavatara Sutra:
It is for the sake of the ignorant who are addicted to the discrimination of the multiplicity of things which are of their own mind, that it is said by me that discrimination takes its rise owing to attachment to the aspect of multiplicity which is characteristic of objects. How otherwise can the ignorant and simple-minded recognize that there is nothing but what is seen of the mind itself, and how otherwise can they gain an insight into the true nature of mind and be able to free themselves from wrong conceptions of cause and effect? How otherwise can they gain a clear conception of the Bodhisattva stages, and attain a “turning-about” in the deepest seat of their consciousness, and finally attain an inner self-realisation of Noble Wisdom which transcends the five Dharmas, the three Self-natures, and the whole idea of a discriminated Reality? For this reason is it said by me that discrimination takes its rise from the mind becoming attached to the multiplicities of things which in themselves are not real, and that emancipation comes from thoroughly understanding the meaning of Reality as it truly is.
I assume that sounds “pretty Zen” to many people here.
But then again, maybe so does this:
“Zen is not a philosophy; it is not a religion. Because there’s nothing to achieve; there’s no one to become. The first step to understanding, is to understand that you do not understand.”
Wow! Pretty “Zen” right?
… except that it was said by a Chand-Mohan-Jain-trained cult leader. (Incidentally, our own [user reference removed] “O-Zen” did an interview with a survivor of this cult.)
The Lankavatara Sutra is focused on “liberation from suffering”, and long drawn-out questions about reality, and doctrines, and dharmas, and a veneration of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas.
In some senses, it is almost a direct opposite of Zen.
The sutra itself was originally written in sanskrit (before being imported to China) and was generally pretty scant among the many, many various sutras that were written or imported. The only historical mentions of its direct relation to Zen seem to come from BodhiDharma fanfic.
There is consistency amongst the canonical Zen Records of “no methods”, “no practices”, and “no dharma”, but there is no mention of “read the Lanka and you’ll understand Zen” except in one or two tangential texts.
In fact, the only way the Lanka really seems consistent with Zen at all is through cherry-picking and ignorance.
At the very end of it, Buddha forbids the eating of onions and garlic in order to earn rebirth as a Brahman in a noble family.
There is nothing like this in the Zen Record.
That doesn’t mean that the Lankavatara Sutra is totally irrelevant to Zen … Zen Masters do quote it sometimes!
But what often happens in this forum, is that the denial of delusion inherent in Zen teachings becomes too much to bear for some people, so they resort to dishonesty in order to assuage their feelings of panic and suffering. So the Lanka is brought up as way to smuggle in the religious sentiments of people who can’t handle Zen … not as a topic of honest discussion about things that the Zen Record talks about.
It’s very much like people telling you that ancient Egyptians flew helicopters because of the “obvious” evidence “literally written on the wall.”
These are lies.
Submitted May 23, 2022 at 10:58PM by OinkerDoinkerBoinker https://ift.tt/mQThfy9
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