Admonition to Myself

Mingben said,

"Study this illusion. It's like a silk thread woven throughout the ten directions; past present and future teem with it. Held up when it's not held up. Set down when it's not set down. Grasped when it's not grasped. Dropped when it's not dropped. It's as if knowing was finished, the cave's entrance unobstructed."

The cave entrance being unobstructed is your original enlightenment shining through without any hindrance. Huangbo says, " All we can say is that it is close by. It cannot be exactly described, but when you have a tacit understanding of its substance, it is there." Buddhists don't tolerate the voices of Zen Masters but rather believe that their own religious beliefs should be privleged above the tacit understanding of Zen Masters.

Understanding that the source of illusion and enlightenment, Zen Masters don't teach a singular truth to rely upon and insist upon its permanence. This is what I think of when Zhenjing said, "Heaven, earth, and I have the same root, myriad things and I are one body." Ciming said, "Everyone, do you understand? Have you not read the saying, "Forgetting objects of knowledge at one stroke, you do not need training or discipline any more. Everywhere those who arrive on the Way all say this is the highest potential."

It isn't neccesarily an restful and passive matter, Mingben in his gave himself an admonition which said,

"I am agitated and have no peace. When the ancients turned 50, they understood that 49 years had been all wrong. Today in my 60th year, I turn back my thoughts to the past. A big part of those years was obscured by a feeling of ignorance."

I, likewise, look back on my years studying Zen and can't help but feel overwhelmed by the massive body of my own ignorance. I see cases of Zen Masters and don't see any way to penetrate them. Mingben relates that,

"My writing lacked in erudition and my inquisitivness was insufficient in insight and clarity."

I am certainly not the smartest person in /r/Zen; my observance of the precepts has been haphazard and undisciplined. I can only hope that people pay more attention to Zen texts than my failures.

Submitted March 23, 2023 at 10:07PM by ThatKir https://ift.tt/FSZaAls