Excerpts from the Zen Teachings of Huang Po
From 'The Zen Teachings of Huang Po: On the Transmission of Mind'. Edited and translated by John Blofeld. Published by The Buddhist Society, London, 1977.
Huang Po was a Chinese monk who lived in China in the ninth century A.D. He is regarded as the intellectual founder of the Japanese Rinzai Zen sect. As can be seen from the following passages, Mind is the most important element to wisdom and enlightment.
As to performing the six paramitas and vast numbers of similar practices, or gaining merits as countless as the sands of the Ganges, since your are fundamentally complete in every respect, you should not try to supplement that perfection by such meaningless practices. When there is occasion for them perform them; and when the occasion is passed, remain quiescent . If you are not absolutely convinced that the Mind is the Buddha, and if you are attached to forms, practices and meritorious performances, your way of thinking is false and quite incompatible with the Way. The Mind is the Buddha, nor are there any other Buddhas or any other mind. It is bright and spotless as the void, having no form or appearance whatever.
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This Mind is no mind of conceptual thought and it is completely detached from form. So Buddhas and sentient beings do not differ at all. If you can only rid yourselves of conceptual thought, you will have accomplished everything.
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Let there be a silent understanding and no more. Away with all thinking and explaining. Then we may say that the Way of Words has been cut off and movements of the mind eliminated. This Mind is the pure Buddha-Source inherent in all men. All wriggling beings possessed of sentient life and all the Buddhas and Boddhisattvas are of this one substance and do not differ. Differences arise from wrong-thinking only and lead to the creation of all kinds of karma.
* * *
If an ordinary man, when he is about to die, could only see the five elements of consciousness as void; the four physical elements as not constituting an 'I'; the real Mind as formless and neither coming nor going; his nature as something neither commencing at his birth nor perishing at his death, but as whole and motionless in its very depths; his Mind and environmental objects as one -- if he could really accomplish this, he would receive Enlightenment in a flash. He would no longer be entangled by the Triple World; he would be a World-Transcendor. He would be without even the faintest tendency towards rebirth. If he should behold the glorious sight of all the Buddhas coming to welcome him, surrounded by every kind of gorgeous manifestation, he would feel no desire to approach them. If he should behold all sorts of horrific forms surrounding him, he would experience no terror. He would just be himself, oblivious of conceptual thought and one with the Absolute. He would have attained the state of unconditioned being. This, then is the fundamental principle.
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Observe things as they are and don't pay attention to other people. There are some people just like mad dogs barking at everything that moves, even barking when the wind stirs among the grass and leaves.
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The Way is not something which can be studied. Study leads to the retention of concepts and so the Way is entirely misunderstood.
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Only he who restrains every vestige of empiricism and ceases to rely upon anything can become a tranquil man.
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To be absolutely without concepts is called the Wisdom of Dispassion. Every day, whether walking, standing, sitting or lying down, and in all your speech, remain detached from everything within the sphere of phenomena. Whether you speak or merely blink an eye, let it be done with complete dispassion.
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Only come to know the nature of your own Mind, in which there is no self and no other, and you will in fact be a Buddha.
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When all the Buddhas manifest themselves in the world, they proclaim nothing but the One Mind. Thus, Gotama Buddha silently transmitted to Mahakasyapa the doctrine that the One Mind, which is the substance of all things, is co-extensive with the Void and fills the entire world of phenomena.
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Full understanding can come to you only through an inexpressible mystery. The approach to it is called the Gateway of the Stillness beyond all Activity. If you wish to understand, know that a sudden comprehension comes when the mind has been purged of all the clutter of conceptual and discriminatory thought-activity. Those who seek the truth by means of intellect and learning only get further and further away from it. Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.
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We cannot become what we have always been; we can only become intuitively aware of our original state, previously hidden from us by the clouds of maya.
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When thoughts arise, then do all things arise. When thoughts vanish, then do all things vanish.
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A perception, sudden as blinking, that subject and object are one, will lead to a deeply mysterious wordless understanding; and by this understanding will you awake to the truth of Zen.
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Have no longing to become a future Buddha; your sole concern should be, as thought succeeds thought, to avoid clinging to any of them.
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All the visible universe is the Buddha; so are all sounds; hold fast to one principle and all the others are Identical. On seeing one thing, you see ALL. On perceiving any individual's mind, you are perceiving ALL Mind. Obtain a glimpse of one way and ALL ways are embraced in your vision, for there is nowhere at all which is devoid of the Way. When your glance falls upon a grain of dust, what you see is identical with all the vast world systems with their great rivers and mighty hills. To gaze upon a drop of water is to behold the nature of all the waters of the universe.
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Develop a mind which rests on no thing whatsoever.
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