As Bankei once stated, “The Unborn Buddha Mind is marvelously illuminating”. Bankei’s Zen was refreshing and life-giving; as part of this “illumination”, Bankei was empowered to assert that “Everyone is endowed with the Buddha-mind, only they don’t know it.” He knew that the hidden bodhiseed lay dormant beneath layers of ignorance, avidya, but if properly invoked, it would awake within the mind of the dreaming. He was no elitist, as though his own self-realization and sect alone held the necessary gnosis for salvific freedom; indeed, the common person (worldling), too, was allowed entrance through his dharma-gate into the all-inclusive and healing embrace of the Unborn.
Another essential element within Bankei’s Zen was the significance of having the discerning Dharma-eye—this was critical for someone expounding the true dharma, as Bankei wrote:
“A Zen teacher cannot help others unless he himself possesses the discerning Dharma-eye. If he has fully perfected his Dharma-eye, he is able to know someone to his very marrow just by observing his face as he approaches. He can know all about him by merely hearing his voice come from outside the temple walls. It is like a bright mirror, which reflects fully and distinctly whatever faces it, revealing both the beautiful and the ugly. Each word he speaks, everything he does in dealing with students, strikes right to the place of their affliction like a sharp gimlet, dissolving their attachments, breaking off their shackles, ushering them into a realm of wonderful freedom and blissful joy. Unless he can do that, what help can he hope to be to others?” Indeed, as Bankei further noted this discerning — all pervasive Dharma eye—was the one factor wherein his sect surpassed all others.
It is good and healthy to acquire proper discernment—the Dharma eye—within this dharma-ending age. It fully empowers one to see with perfect clarity what teachings prove helpful, joyful and valuable, and those that purportedly offer salvific freedom, but in actuality, subjugate many beneath a veil of dark deceit.
The subtitle of your blog “Know Thyself Before The Arisal and Cessation of All Things.” is great pointer in itself!
– Suki
Suki,
Yes, this maxim spiritually originated at Delphi in ancient Greece; it was recently nuanced by Tozen–most notably highlighted in his Dharmakaya Sutra–you can find this work in the texts link above here.
Yes, thank you. There is no information on Tozen and is that deliberate, I mean he puposely wants to keep a low profile? No problem with it, just asking the question. Like to know your response.
Thanks – Suki
Suki,
That above texts link opening Tozen’s Dharmakaya Sutra offers much about Tozen; also, the Bodhichild Channel “videos” you made reference to in an earlier post was made in Tribute to him…the latest being the 2nd Edition of the Dharmakaya Sutra…so information about him and his works abound.
Suki,
Just discovered your blog, “Invisible Mirror”. Wonderful! Do you plan to continue focusing on Nisargadatta? Great stuff!
Nisargadatta has been my primary source for inspiration, though I draw from a variety of sources. The links are on my blog are a small representation of sources.
I have yet to read the Dharmakaya Sutra, so again thank you. Ha, may be I should of read that first before asking about Tozen.
Much thanks – Suki
Just joined your blog–most inspirational–thanks!
We have a very old saying in my country that goes something like this: “He who has not rooted out evil in his heart leaves the door open to the Devil”.
Make no mistake, the devil never misses an opportunity to visit an open house.
To equal enlightenment or spiritual awakening with expressions like “I am nothing thus I desire nothing” or prior to this consciousness I am no one is false bodhi and one of Maras 50 false enlightenments as strictly warned about in the surangama sutra. But then many “indian gurus” were and are very poor people not even affording a single sutra to help them avoid Maras traps on ther vopyage to the other shore of Nirvana. There are en temporal shores of false nirvanas where Devas enjoy their merit, that is until the merit meter shows zero and they fall straight down to hell. If one has a good map (sutra) and when practising the way knows how to use this map one becomes a good captain (bodhisattva).
Lets look closer to what awakening really means as originally claimed by the Buddhas or in our case (this world) Buddha Shakyamuni.
Bodhi is a noun formed from the verbal root budh which means; to awake, become aware, KNOW (Gnosi) or instantly understand .When Buddha Sakhyamuni awoke under the the Mahabodhi Tree, todays found at the Sri Mahabodhah temple in Bodh Gaya, he, and very much he, in direct opposition to this feebleminded Nisargadatta , experienced great Bodhi. In fact it was so awesome he needed 7 days and 7 nights to merge with all omnicient and perfectly pure essence of the Buddha Mind. What arised from that tree was no longer a simple yogi in rag, but an incomparable BUDDHA to whom even gods of various stages would throw themselves to the ground in trembling reverence (yes children, read the Lotus sutra and Avatamsaka sutra and find out for yourselves). Indra himself pleaded like a madman, asking Buddha to not enter parinirvana (eg turning this shithole of a world his back) but stay and start the wheel of RIGHT KNOWLEDGE and saveat least those with little sand in their eyes.
Well the rest is history and available for the sharp eyed and not nihilistically proned, which I notice are to be f ound in this site like in many many other places on Internet. That together with incurable materialists.
If you investigate the word bodhi you find that once it is arised it implies the extinction of Lobha(greed), a difficult sickness in all its forms and moha(delusion) the precursor to the previous. These two are the devils favourite whores which he offers to weak minded to fornicate with at any time possible and any state possible that does not encompass bodhi. There are of course other whores (of the mind lacking bodhi) but I leave that for others to discover..hehe.
Bodhi is sometimes described as complete and Brilliant Sanity, or undivided awareness of the true nature of the universe which is a born aspect of the One Mind.
Buddha said about those with arised Bodhi; “When he (the yogi) lives with perfect insight won, he surely comes no more to any womb.”
It is an awesome knowledge and no where near one of the 50 false enlightenments by Mara, of which one of them is equivalent to the nihilisitic sensation arising just prior to corporeal consciousness (his best trap), where there arises the sensation of knowing nothing, being nothing. This is a honey trap that can imprison a yogi for kalpas. (yes children stupidity, in all its forms, hurt self and others).
After attainment of pure bodhi (eg free from any gross or subtle defilements); one is freed from the cycle of samsara like birth, suffering, death and rebirth in various hell holes of the mind devoid of right knowledge (also bodhi).
Bodhi is the ultimate goal of Buddhist life (brahmacarya) because from it, arises the Bodhi-sattva, the spiritual being and hence the coming Buddha. To deny self this marvellous knowledge by locking spirit up in a slight intervall between sixth and eight consciousness (which is the 7th) is vey difficult trap, that up till this day have entrapped the most sharp minded whom forgot to chek the map before sialing further in the treacherous seas of samsara.
Kinshi out.
To the inattentive insect the venus flytrap ,is the most beautiful flower of all due to its sweet nectar. The inside of the leaf is coated with this sweet nectar covering that attracts the insect to it and the trap will snap shut on the insect in 1/10th of a second. Mara works from his kingdom of the 7th consciousness in the same way.
The sixth consciousness. brings about karmic activity that leads to retribution, which is the completion of the three-stage karmic process:
1) giving rise to delusion,
2) creating karma,
and
3) undergoing retribution.
When karma is created, seeds are planted in the eighth consciousness (alaya). At the time of rebirth it is the ripening of those seeds, “the power of karma”, that draws the eighth consciousness back into the suffering of the Six Paths of Rebirth.
A buddha or a bodhisattva of the 8th bhumi and higher has transformed the 8th consciousness into pure Mind thus immune to any further retribution and rebirth.
Here endeth the lesson to those who like playing “buddhists” and never practising the real thing in the way Buddha advised them to.
Kinshi out.
Kinshi??? My, my, you have more aliases than Carter has liver pills—an old analogy stemming from 1939 yet most apropos in describing you, sir, and your tired methods. Yesterday, the question was asked pertaining to information about “Tozen”—well, here he is in all his splendid pedantic regalia. Over this year he has appeared and disappeared hither and yonder bearing many faces (like Mara) yet the message is always the same—my way, or the highway. To his credit, at his best, in exploring the nature of the Unborn he has had many brilliant moments over the years, but his real downfall has always been his outmoded pedantic narrow mindedness and is a hopeless “literalist” in accounting about the dangers of Mara—oh yes, Mara, Mara everywhere—except within his own lambastic spirit. His condemnation of Nisragadatta here through employing a hodgepodge of reference points like the Surangama Sutra and also outdated sources that are akin to prejudiced—indeed, outright racist personages—are a sad display of what happens to wanna-be advatars who are so self-absorbed that anything outside their frame of reference is just too much for them to behold, let alone attempt to absorb. Let it be known that at his home base he would never allow anything to be posted that went against his own shallow dogma—he is infamous for “deleting” posts and outright condemnation of anyone who does not share his own spoiled persuasion. To be honest, I was reluctant in approving your condemnatory lambastions, but a friend suggested that they be passed through—well, am glad he did so…because unlike your home base sir, even posts like yours will be allowed and revealed for what they truly are—a sad reflection of warped pomposity at its best.
🙂
You seem like a real nut case dude.
Kinshi out.
Yes, nuts for following you for as long as I did. You can use however many aliases as you like–but your IP address (along with your hilariously recognizable and laboriously pedantic writing style) , like Tozen, is in Sweden.
Whoa! So Tozen and Azanshi, the commentator in The Zennist blog, are the same person?? This was a surprising twist!
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