7. “The building up of good and evil both involve attachment to form.1 Those who, being attached to form, do evil have to undergo various incarnations unnecessarily; while those who, being attached to form, do good, subject themselves to toil and privation equally to no purpose. In either case it is better to achieve sudden self-realization and to grasp the fundamental Dharma. This Dharma is Mind, beyond which there is no Dharma; and this Mind is the Dharma, beyond which there is no mind. Mind in itself is not mind, yet neither is it no-mind. To say that Mind is no-mind implies something existent.2 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 Bodhisattvas 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.3”
1 According to Zen, virtuous actions should be performed by adepts, but not with a view to accumulating merit and not as a means to Enlightenment. The door should remain perfectly unattached to the actions and to their results.
2 In other words, Mind is an arbitary term for something that cannot properly be expressed in words.
3 Karma, even good karma, leads to rebirth and prolongs the wanderings of the supposedly individual entity; for when good karma has worked itself out in consequent enjoyment, the ‘individual’ is as far from understanding the One Mind as ever.
All dichotomous attributes like good and evil are indelibly linked to formal patterns bearing some karmic ramifications. The Master says that those attached to evil patterns continue to spin the karmic-wheel and will reincarnate again and again, oftentimes in quite undesirable formalized conditions; while those attached to good patterns in hopes of gaining merit toil in vain and ultimately for no purpose, other than to make some kind of altruistic mark on a samsaric world that is in itself sunya. He says to drop all concerns of the formalized, conditioned mundane body-consciousness and to turn instead to the Noble Self-Realization of the Unborn Buddha Mind, the hallmark of the Buddhadharma. Mind and the Buddhadharma are synonymous in import, beyond which there is no mind or Dharma. Yet, once again in league with the Diamond Sutra, the Master states that in itself Mind knows no formal classification as “Mind”; although (and this is vitally significant) “neither is it no-mind”, to proclaim it so otherwise implies that it is some kind of self-existent thing. Years ago when I was in my “Osho-Phase”, I was always enamored of his proclamation of “No-Mind”—as if this was some kind of miraculous revelation that freed one from the plague of the Ego-mind. In effect, what his ignominious and proselytizing refrain of “no-mind” actually did was to enslave unwary spirits to a life of total and unequivocal obedience to his own warped and chameleon-like Egotized dark presence. He used to state that “you can try to leave me; but I’ll always be there ‘in your mind'”; indeed, he was always attempting to convey in endless “words, words, words” a Noble Mind Realization that is in itself ineffable. As the True Master states herein, animated sentient reality is not self-existent from the Mind that animates; all differential-thinking will only lead to further suffering and endless rounds within the karmadhatu.
8. “Our original Buddha-Nature is, in highest truth, devoid of any atom of objectivity. It is void, omnipresent, silent, pure; it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy–and that is all. Enter deeply into it by awaking to it yourself. That which is before you is it, in all its fullness, utterly complete. There is naught beside. Even if you go through all the stages of a Bodhisattva’s progress towards Buddhahood, one by one; when at last, in a single flash, you attain to full realization, you will only be realizing the Buddha-Nature which has been with you all the time; and by all the foregoing stages you will have added to it nothing at all.1 You will come to look upon those aeons of work and achievement as no better than unreal actions performed in a dream. That is why the Tathagata said: ‘I truly attained nothing from complete, unexcelled Enlightenment. Had there been anything attained, Dipamkara Buddha would not have made the prophecy concerning me.’2 He also said: ‘This Dharma is absolutely without distinctions, neither high nor low, and its name is Bodhi.’ It is pure Mind, which is the source of everything and which, whether appearing as sentient beings or as Buddhas, as the rivers and mountains of the world which has form, as that which is formless, or as penetrating the whole universe, is absolutely without distinctions, there being no such entities as selfness and otherness.”
1 Enlightenment must come in a flash, whether you have passed through the preliminary stages or not, so the latter can well be dispensed with, except that, for reasons unconnected with Enlightenment, Zen requires of adepts an attitude of kindness and helpfulness towards all living creatures.
2 This quotation refers to the Diamond Sutra, as do many of the others either directly or indirectly. Dipamkara Buddha, during a former life of Gautama Buddha, prophesied ‘that he would one day attain to Buddhahood. Huang Po means that the prophecy would not have been made if Dipamkara Buddha had supposed that Gautama Buddha’s Enlightenment would lead to the actual attainment of something he had not already been from the very first; for then Enlightenment would not have led to Buddhahood, which implies a voidness of all distinctions such as attainer, attained, non-attainer and non-attained.
Once again the Master emphasizes the Unborn Nature of Mind that he says is “mysterious-peaceful-joy” and naught else besides. All one need do is to open up to the grace AS IT IS before you, and no-thing more need be done. Don’t try to add or subtract from Its effervescent imageless-hue that is all-encompassing. If you try to grasp It by groping through all the bodhisattvic stages or even “in a single flash”, it’s all the same…just more cognitive interference that disrupts the Dharmakayic Ecstasy from revealing It’s own and complete Noble Self-Realization of an Unborn Mind in a perfect state-less state of actuosity. Blofeld’s accompanying footnote concerning Huang-po’s alliance with the Diamond Sutra is right on the mark; indeed, as stated earlier in previous blog posts of this series, the Master’s teachings and the Diamond Sutra are inseparably linked. The perfect Mind-Realization is also expounded here that the Tathagata reveals the True Mind-Dharma as Undifferentiated and Undivided and hence Bodhi-Mind—the most salient component of the Buddhadharma. The dawning of this most auspicious Mind-Realization has empowered Zen folk throughout the millennia to assert that there is no-thing self-existent as mountains and rivers; yet after enlightenment is enkindled, they are most fully present in-Mind as mountains and rivers—but devoid of being a separate “other” from a distinguishing separate “self”.