Uncultivated Unexcelled Awareness

Mazu said,

"The Way is not in the province of cultivation. If you speak of attainment by cultivation, whatever is developed by cultivation also decays."

Cultivation can refer to any of the religious practices people assert gives insight or whose attainment transforms you from a "lesser" state to a "greater" state of purity. Religion is all about cultivation of different states--Catholics have contemplative prayer, Hindus have the various yogas, Dogenists have "zazen" which consists of sitting in place for long periods of time which they insist is identical to the practice of Buddhas.

Mazu continues,

"Enlightenment is spoken of in contrast to delusion; since there is fundamentally no delusion, enlightenment does not stand either."

Whether it's "original sin" or the "three poisons", religions insist that there is a fundamental, metaphysical, and inherent problem with the self that must be mended by adhereance to ritual and transformation arising from faith in doctrines.

Mazu continues,

"If you do not know how to return to the source, but pursue labels and descriptions, delusive sentiments arise at random, and you initiate all sorts of actions. If you can reflect back for a moment, the whole being is the enlightened mind."

How to return to the source? Mazu says simply reflect back for a moment. Sengcan, the Third Patriarch, says, "At the moment of turning the light of awareness around, there is going beyond appearance and emptiness."

Yuanwu says, "The most important thing is for people of great faculties and sharp wisdom to turn the light of mind around and shine back and clearly awaken to this mind before a single thought is born"

Note how there isn't a recipe provided, nor instructions on how to sit.

Mazu concludes,

"If you talk about the three treasuries of the Buddha's provisional teachings, you could talk for countless eons without exhausting them--like links in a chain, they never end. But if you realize the enlightened mind, there is nothing else."

Buddhists coming here to talk about how how meditation is a good thing are fundamentally at odds with Mazu's awakening to enlightenment. Of course, they try to brigade this forum with fraudulent voting, afraid to participate in public discussion of Zen texts but anyone literate can see right through that sham immediately. Foyan said, "The ancients had no choice but to make provisional explanations where there is no explanation, skillfully employing expedient means where there are no expedients."

If they can't quote Zen Masters, they can't be said to even be newbies.

Submitted March 31, 2023 at 01:16AM by ThatKir https://ift.tt/OTCVcUN