Master Nanquan said to an assembly,
The Burning Lamp Buddha said it - if what is thought up by mental descriptions produces things, they are empty, artificial, all unreal. Why?
Even mind has no existence - how can it produce things? They are like shadows of forms dividing up empty space, like someone putting sound in a box, and like blowing into a net trying to inflate it. Therefore an old adept said, "It is not mind, not Buddha, not a thing," teaching you how to practice. It is said that tenth stage bodhisattvas abide in the concentration of heroic progress, gain the secret treasury of teachings of all Buddhas, spontaneously attain all meditations, concentrations, liberations, spiritual powers, and wondrous functions, go to all worlds and manifest physical bodies everywhere, sometimes present the appearance of attaining enlightenment, turning the wheel of the great teaching, and entering complete extinction, causing infinity to enter into a pore, expound a one-line scripture for countless eons without exhausting the meaning, teach countless billions of beings to attain acceptance of the truth of no origin; yet this is still called the folly of knowledge, the folly of extremely subtle knowledge, completely contrary to the Way. It's very difficult, very hard; take care.
- Cleary's Treasury of the Eye of True Teaching #260
I flipped to this one and thought it fitting since Nanquan seems to be in the headlines a lot lately. And he's one of my favourites.
I agree with him that it is hard. Another one of my favourite quotes is from Dahui: "It is easier to turn stones into gold and jewels than to get people to set aside affirmation and negation." There's no take-away, no dogma, in what the Zen masters say - at best only 'medicine' appropriate for the moment, often to contrast something else, like Huineng's poem to contrast Shenxiu's.
It strikes me as bizarre that folks often seem to want to box this up, saying 'oh but there is this world of facts apart from what the Zen masters say'... I don't quite understand. Hundreds of years of science has given us a few pretty amazing but unproven theories, some irreconcilable, and philosophy and mathematics tell us that there are always an uncountable number of interpretations to fit any data. This is not to say reality isn't 'anchored', but Zen masters are quite adamant it isn't anchored in any thing. And it's certainly not the case that they peddle one truth for the enlightened and another for the ignorant.
When we say we can't see it's often because it's dark or our eyes are closed - and so that blackness gets associated with 'nothing' or 'void'... But 'nothing' isn't black.
If you go on to talk of mind, it too is neither something nor nothing; ultimately it is not you. The idea of something originally there now being absent, and the idea of something originally not there now being present, are views of nihilism and eternalism.
- Foyan
Xuansha (TotEoTT 516):
The ancient sages did not make arrangements; even now they have no fixed place. If you arrive here, you ascend into the mystery with every step, not in the province of wrong or right. Perception cannot discern it, intellect cannot know it. Stir, and you lose the source; consciously notice, and you miss the essence. Those on the two vehicles tremble, those in the ten stages are shocked. The road of speech is cut off, the sphere of mental activity disappears. Hence we have Shakyamuni shutting off his room in Magadha, Vimalakirti keeping his mouth closed in Vaisali, Subhuti preaching no explanation to reveal the Way, Indra and Brahma raining flowers without hearing. If it is evident in this way, what would you still doubt? Where there is no abiding is beyond past, future, and present. It cannot be limited; the road of thought is cut off. It does not depend on arrangement or embellishment; it is originally real and pure. Activity, speech, and laughter are everywhere perfectly clear; there is no lack anymore.
People of the present do not understand the principle herein, and mistakenly get themselves involved in things and sense objects, getting influenced everywhere, getting bound up everywhere. Even if you awaken, sense data and objects are still profuse; names and descriptions are not real. Then you try to freeze your mind, rein in thoughts, reduce phenomena to emptiness, shut your eyes, break off thoughts as they arise again and again, and suppress subtle thinking as soon as it arises. Views like this are characteristic of outside ways that fall into nihilism, dead people whose ghosts have not yet departed, dark and vague, unaware, unknowing, covering your ears to steal a bell, uselessly fooling yourself. If you discriminate here, it is not so.
This is not standing by the door, at the corner of the gate. Each expression is evident, not open to debate, not literal. To be fundamentally beyond sense data and objects, fundamentally without ranks, is provisionally called a leaver of home, ultimately without tracks or traces. Reality as such, ordinary and holy, hell and heaven, are just prescriptions of obvious lunatics. Even space has no change - how can the Way have rising and sinking? When you are enlightened, you are free in all ways without leaving the fundamental. If you arrive here, ordinary and holy have no place to stand. If you fabricate ideas in expression, this drowns students. If you run seeking outside, you fall into the realm of demons. Real transcendence has nothing to arrange. It is like a blazing furnace does not hide a mosquito. This principle is originally even; what's the need for leveling off? Activity, even raising the brows, is the real path of liberation; it is not forced or calculated. Setups are contrary to reality. If you arrive here, nothing at all is taken on; set your mind and you miss. This is the coming forth of a thousand sages; you cannot label it at all.
Man, he's got a way with words! I do like my sleep and I don't enjoy gardening very often...but there does come a time when it's harder to stay in bed than to mow the lawn.
Xuansha mentions "Indra and Brahma raining flowers without hearing" - I believe this is a reference to the following, the last of my favourite quotes for this post:
One day, in a mood of sublime emptiness, Subhuti was resting underneath a tree when flowers began to fall about him. "We are praising you for your discourse on emptiness," the gods whispered to Subhuti. "But I have not spoken of emptiness," replied Subhuti. "You have not spoken of emptiness, we have not heard emptiness," responded the gods. "This is the true emptiness." The blossoms showered upon Subhuti as rain.
Submitted March 21, 2023 at 04:53PM by sje397 https://ift.tt/X8a0bfB
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