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�
��� �( In
Chinese- Ch'an, from Dhyana, the sanscrit word for meditation )The school of instant Enlightenment -Ding Dong!yes you!�
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�
��� "Before the first step is taken the goal is reached.
���
Before the tongue is moved the speech is finished.
�����
More than brilliant intuition is needed,
��������
to find the origin of the right road.
������������������������
Mu-mon - 1228
������ Yes indeed, you are
bigger than you thought- the 'watcher' ,the experiencer' is connected to the whole ...
����� To hone the mind, to attain
the mountain top of self mastery, a still mind takes more than that insight, and yet when
and where can this 'enlightenment' be found?
���������
" If you overlook the Way right before your eyes,
���������������� how
will you know the path beneath your feet?
Advancing has nothing to do with near and far,
���������������� yet
delusion creates obstacles high and wide.
��� Students of the mystery,
���������� I
humbly urge you,
������������� don't
waste a moment,
�������������������������� night
or day!"
���������������������������������� -
Shih-t'ou (700-790)
���
But, since it is easy to miss the historical background to this promise of
immediate liberation ,(the cart drawn by the oxen), Lets go back in time to a classic all
these hard working monks would have had to memorise -
THE
PRAJNAPARAMITA HEART SUTRA
The Heart of the Prajnaparamita:
������
The Bodhisattva Avalokita, while moving in the deep course of Perfect
Understanding, shed light on the five skandhas and found them equally empty. After this
penetration, he overcame all pain.
����� "Listen, Shariputra,
form is emptiness, emptiness is form,
form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form.
The same is true with feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.
"Hear, Shariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness; they are neither produced
nor destroyed, neither defiled nor immaculate, neither increasing nor decreasing.
Therefore, in emptiness there is neither form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor mental
formations, nor consciousness; no eye or ear, or nose, or tongue, or body, or mind, no
form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind; no realms of elements
(from eyes to mind-consciousness); no interdependent origins and no extinction of them
(from ignorance to old age and death); no suffering, no origination of suffering, no
extinction of suffering, no path; no understanding, no attainment. "Because there is
no attainment, the bodhisattvas, supported by the Perfection of Understanding, find no
obstacles for their minds. Having no obstacles, they overcome fear, liberating themselves
forever from illusion and realizing perfect Nirvana. All Buddhas in the past, present, and
future, thanks to this Perfect Understanding, arrive at full, right, and universal
Enlightenment. "Therefore, one should know that Perfect Understanding is a great
mantra, is the highest mantra, is the unequalled mantra, the destroyer of all suffering,
the incorruptible truth. A mantra of Prajnaparamita should therefore be proclaimed. This
is the mantra:
The
dicipline and rigours of monastic life for these Bhuddists would have been very difficult
for many of us- Take, for example some of the vows, common to many Zen monastries:
1. However
innumerable all beings are, I vow to save them all
2. However inexhaustible my delusions are, I vow to overcome them all
3. However immeasurable the Dharma Teachings are, I vow to fathom them all
4. The Buddha's Path is endless, I vow to follow it to its very end.
Zen tends
to downplay the necessity for rigidity and a rote answer might bring a shocking reply:
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����� "Students today lack
self-confidence;
��������� they
should not seek externally.
As long as you continue to rely upon the methods of the ancestors,
�������� you
will never be able to distinguish between true and false.
Buddhas and the ancient masters are nothing more than the tracks
�������� left
behind by their teachings.
Then come people who pluck a saying out of them,
regardless of whether its meaning is clear to them or remains hidden.
� They become uncertain,
����� look up at the sky and down at the
earth,
��������� ask
others for advice and remain confused all the same.
��� Buddha's law requires no effort.
���� It exists in the everyday and has no aim:
��� shitting,� pissing,� getting dressed,
� eating,�
����� and sleeping when you are
tired.
�� The simple-minded may laugh at me,
�������������� but
the wise know better.
You tell the world over,
�������� "Whoever
practices will become enlightened."
Do not deceive yourselves with this!
��� If anything is to be gained by practice,
�������� then
it is the fate of birth and death . . .
Buddha and the ancient masters were people with no special intention.
���� Certain blind baldies, to be sure,
���� practice meditation and the observance of
rules.
����� They pack up their thoughts
and desires
������������������ and
never let go of them;
����� they shun clamor and seek
quiet.
��������� That
has nothing to do with the truth [of Zen].
Such and the like are mere affectations.
������������������ Do
not be deceived!
���������������������� -Lin
chi I-hsuan (Died-866AD)
Further:
������� "Fellow
believers, you lug your alms bag and this sack of shit that is your body and you rush off
on� side roads, looking for buddhas,
looking for the Dharma.Right now, all this dashing and searching you're doing -do you know
what it is you're looking for? It is vibrantly alive, yet it has no root or stem.You can't
gather it up, you can't scatter it to the winds.the more you search for it the farther
away it gets.But don't search for it and� it's right before your eyes, its miraculous
sound always in your ears.But if you� don't have faith, you'll spend your
hundred years in wasted labor..."� -Lin-chi
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He sounds pretty
radical these days- but it musn't be forgotten that he spent a long time in various
monasteries, and having served three years before he� asked his first pre-ordained
question- the classic: "What is the real meaning of Buddhism?" he was hit for
his pains,( indeed over the years three times he was hit as an answer to this same
question!) Oddly perhaps his own response, when much later he was asked a similar question
by one of his monks, he 'gave a shout and then struck the monk saying:
�������� "You
don't drive a nail into the empty sky ! "
���� (There is a further section, somewhere on
this homepage, about LinChi, a most remarkable zen master ...)
��������� One
day a monk asked the great teacher Matsu,
�������������� "What
is Buddha's mind?"
Matsu said, "Mind itself is Buddha."
Later someone told Matsu,
"I hear you said that 'Mind itself is Buddha.'"
����������������� "I
say that to people, to children, so they will stop crying."
"What do you say after they stop crying?"
����������������������������������� "I
say, 'No mind, no Buddha.'"
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Lets go back
� earlier to one of� Lin chi's Teachers- Huang Po:
Huang-po said:
������� "The
one mind is the Buddha,
������� and there
is no distinction between Buddha and ordinary beings,
���� except that ordinary beings are attached
to forms
������ and thus seek for
Buddhahood outside themselves.
������ By this very
seeking they lose it,
������� since
they are using Buddha to seek for Buddha,
����������������� using
mind to seek for mind.
Even if they continue for a million eons,
�������� they
will never be able to find it.
They don't know that all they have to do
�������� is
put a stop to conceptual thinking,
��� and the Buddha will appear before them,
� because this mind is the Buddha
���� and the Buddha is all living beings.
���� It is not any less for being manifested in
ordinary things,
��������� nor
any greater for being manifested in Buddhas. "
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And back further
in time, to the man who brought Buddhism from the west-
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���� "By putting to rest all external
entangling objects,
������ And not agitating
your inner mind
���� And making your mind like a wall,
����� You can enter the Path "
- Bodhidharma
(He did spend seven years facing a wall meditating, to demonstrate his power/
stillness)
So what is this
enlightened experience?
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������ "If
enlightenment is not where you are standing,
������������� where
will you look?" - Zen Saying
Or...
����� ¡KIn the night the bells of the mountain temple are swung
������������ by
the wind from the pines.
����� From my bed of stone by the wintry
lamp
�������� I
can hear the flowering rain of Buddha.
�������������� -
-Wang wen-lu (16th century)
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��������� "As
regards the quietude of the sage,
������������ he
is not quiet because quietness is said to be good.
�� He is quiet because the multitude of things cannot disturb his
quietude.
�������� When
water is still,
��������� even
one's beard and eyebrows are reflected in it.
��� A skilled carpenter uses it as a level to obtain a
measurement.
������� If still
water is so clear,
��������� how
much more are the mental faculties!
��� The mind of a sage is the mirror of heaven and earth
�
��������� in
which all things are reflected."
���������������������������������� -
Chuang Tzu.
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" What is it then,
that knows how to preach the Dharma
������������������������ or
listen to the Dharma?
��������� It
is you who are right here before my eyes ,
�������
� this lone birghtness without fixed shape or form-
this is what knows how to preach the Dharma and listen to the Dharma.
������� If you can
see it this way , then you'll be no different from the patriarchs and buddhas.
� But never at any time let go of this even for a moment.
�������������� Everything
that meets your eyes is this.
But�� 'when feelings arise, wisdom is blocked;
�������� when
thoughts waver, reality departs,'**�
therefore you� keep being reborn again and again in the threefold world and
�������������� undergoing
all kinds of misery.
���� But as I see it ,
������ there are none of you
incapable of profound understanding,
����������� none
of you incapable of emancipation."
���������� -Lin-chi.(**
quoted from Li T'ung-hsuan 639-734)
� 'Lin-chi
was entering an army encampment to attend a dinner
���������� when
he saw one of the officers at the gate.
�������� He
pointed to the bare wooden gatepost and said,
���������������� "A
common mortal or a sage?"
� The officer had no reply.
Lin-chi struck the Gatepost and said,
������ "Even if you
managed a reply,
������������ it
would still be just a wooden post!"
�� With that he entered the camp.'
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