Zen Buddhism strives, to get you the fastest possible way, to the undivided light of the Unborn Mind. Your own true nature.
From there on, the true path of the ariyan Mind begins, and the light of Mahayana, shining with a brilliance that cannot be matched by any known phenomenon in this universe, dissolves the body consciousness of temporal spatiality as long as you bathe your Spirit in its imageless presence.
He or she whom never spent at least a full day and a full night in perfect dhyana, having the Mind observing purely itself as if it were a wall, can never pass through the gateless gate that leads to the amazing reality of Mahayana. And that is what the sole duty of Zen is all about. To take you through that gate and make you face the light of your own true nature.
The Lankavatara sutra describes this most auspicious and singular light as Mahayana-Prabhasa – the very destroyer of ignorance and true Dharma teacher – that is of course, once you are awakened by its most luminous and nirvanic presence. To this light nothing is impossible and nothing is beyond its reach. It is because you trust the world of your senses more than this light, you cannot see and thus suffer this spiritual short-coming resulting in so many failures, disappointments and self doubt. The master of this inverted act, the great liar and anti-spirit, is your own divided Spirit. Your Mind’s seat of pure will and direction is simply out of whack to coin a contemporary term.
Because it is divided, fragmented you perceive a a world of myriad phenomena seemingly coming into and going out of apparent existence. But existence or non-existence are illusions. Mere parlor tricks of Mara the evil one who controls your body consciousness and draws power from it because there is where your Spirit is most invested.
Sentient beings move their limbs incessantly and keep producing thoughts interminably.
Using them to paint a vast canvas with illusory concepts about all things between heaven and earth, and yet they do not know this light of their own true self that enables this most wondrous act effortlessly and instantaneously.
One cannot truly speak of Zen or even anything about Buddhism, if one does not know this light. Even a small glimpse of it, for a split second, is sufficient to have a right view of the path that leads to the other shore of Nirvana.
If one hasn’t had this glimpse or greater encounter with IT – then to speak about the dharma to others is an act of spiritual hypocrisy and bad karma. The intention might be deemed good but the consequences of offering erroneous views of the supreme and thus lure a sentient into a false path that leads to countless painful rebirths is an act of great evil and becomes its own judge, jury and executioner.
In such cases it is better to be mute as a clam and observe rather than speak without the slightest gnosis of the Unborn Mind.
If you believe a method, a technique or an experience can outshine your own Mind in its noble wisdom then at least try to remember this in the future:
The Lankavatara states; “The Dhyanas , the immeasurables, the formless, the Samadhis, and the complete extinction of thought —these do not exist where the Mind alone is.”
Think about it and then penetrate the empty kingdom of form, sensation and thought-consciousness and straight into the real super consciousness of your true nature and reality where you own Mind is purely as itself at all times in the permanent here and now and not the illusory here and now of the body consciousness.
You can do it. Whether walking that body, having it sitting or lying down doesn’t matter. It is what symbolic position of your Mind works best as to quiet down its influence on your Mind, while IT disembodies itself from the poisoning and defiling consciousness field the body consciousness constitutes.
How many more hints do you need to find faith and a pure will, undisturbed by inner or outer phenomena, to direct your own inner Spirit towards the core of your own true nature?
Do not expect me to help you. Instead you should try and you should tell me…what else beyond your own free Mind do you need to find your self?
If you ever awake to the reality of this question, then you truly are a great one, one whom can remain unconcerned the rest of his or her’s life, while freely, at will, riding the head of the Black Dragon.
Tozen
Additonally I should also mention that a good mark of progress in your spiritual practise is an increased sense of well-being, fearlessness in face of death, and above all, a good sense of humour, considering the nature of things.
Yours and Zennist’s teaching is truly profound, but it still falls under the category of “Separate Teaching”, thus it’s not the Perfect Teaching of Grand Master Zhiyi who wrote:
“How could the coarse thinkable be different from the marvelous unthinkable? Without leaving words and letters we can thus speak the meaning of liberation. The crux is just to realize how the thinkable is identical to the unthinkable.”
In his little known work “A short history of the Twelve Japanese Buddhists sects” (6th December, 19th year of Meiji – 1886) the once great buddhist scholar Bunyiu Nanjio, who edited the original Lankavatara sutra in sanskrit, before even Suzuki did, wrote in chapter 7, the seventh buddhist sect (Ten-dai-shu) (Brackets are my comments);
“The doctrine of this sect is to encourage all men, whether quick or slow in understanding, to exercise
the principle of ^Completion and Suddenness’ (Endon), with four doctrinal divisions; one or all of which
are taught to men, according to their ability. The object of the doctrine is to make men get an excellent
understanding, practise the good discipline, and attain to the great fruit of enliglitened. Thus they
can become a benefit to their country.
The principle of Completion and Suddenness is the meditation on the middle path. This path is called
the inconceivable state. If one understands this principle, all things are in completion. Though
beings were originally in the state of completion, they once sank into confusion and began to suffer miseries of existence, without knowing truth. Out of compassion, therefore, Buddha appeared in the
world, and preached the truth in several doctrines according fo the circumstances of time and place.
There are the four doctrinal divisions of ‘Completion (En), Secrecy (Mitsu), Meditation (Zen), and Moral
Precept (Kai);’ which are the means of knowing the principle of Completion.
[Further into this chapter we read]
The following is the regular order of the four doctrinal divisions:
1. The Moral Precept of Completion and Suddenness (En-don-kai),
2. the Action of Meditation (Shi-kwan-go),
3. the Action of Vairokana (Sha-na-go),
and
4. the Transmission of the Law of Bodhidharma (Daru-ma-fn-ho).
the Action of Meditation is to practise the excellent contemplation on the middle path, in
order to understand the principle of Completion and Suddenness. All the teachings of Buddha in the
five periods of his life are comprehended herein.
The five periods (Go-ji) and eight divisions of teaching (Hakkyo) called the ‘doctrine and meditation’ (Kyo-kwan) in Ten-Dai-Shu;
The five periods are called after the titles of the principal Sutras, namely: 1. The Ke-gon, or
Avatamsaka; 2. the A-gon,- or Agama; 3. the Ho-do,” or Vaipulya; 4. the Han-nya or Prajna-Paramita; 5. The Hokke, or Saddharma-Punandarika [your beloved Lotus Sutra]
[Sometimes, by a strange reason, the Tendai sect also include the Nehan Gyo; or Nirvana sutra.
in their five periods which then should be six periods]
[The eight doctrines you arebound to follow the rest of your life are]
(1)The sudden (Ton)
(2) The gradual (Zen),
(3) The secret (Hi-mitsu),
(4) The indeterminate (Fii-jo),
(5) Collection (Zo),
(6) Progress (Tsu),
(7) Distinction (Betsu),
and
(8) Completion (En).
Further one we read; the Transmission on of the Law of Bodhidharma, requires only one thought and three rules.
Those who begin this practice have to enter at once the spiritual world, and cultivate their mind, [have you done this yet?] wishing to obtain the highest active power of wisdom. Finally, if they were consldered to be competent men for the transmission, they are given a sealed diploma in
the special ceremony. [acknowledgement of their awakening to the light of the Unborn Mind].
As I once told you in a one of our dokusans, your higly dialectical mind is well suited for the
the Tiantai that are the most systematic and comprehensive of all buddhist sects.
In my book though (and I believe Zenmar view them in the same light) they are not the supreme path to Buddhahood, and many Zen mystics of the more esoteric northern branch of Chan and the few remaining zen mystics on Shokuku Island in Japan would also agree with me.
Yet for you they are certainly t perfect, because their teachings require the highest mental and spiritual discipline (although you possess agood portion of the first, you most surely lack the second, and so much need in order to make any progress in this most difficult path of the Ten-Dai-Shu.
I don´t think there are any good Tien Tai or Ten-Dai-Shu masters left in the world. The best ones died around the second world war in Japan or right after it. (Insinerated with their small temples in the American fire bombings at the end of the war).
So you are much on your own in this highly intricate path.
I doubt any chinese Tien tai Master woud accept you if you cannot show at least a good dhyana discipline, being able to meditate for a couple of days without interruption or freaking out when the your subconscious makyo demons rise and attack you during the late night hours. All that without complaint and of course mastering the Chinese language as they most certainly only speak Chinese (at east learn Mandarin).
Of the twelve sects I believe you have gone through 2 so far. Lets hope the third one is a charm 😉
Best of luck and I hope the information provided here was of any help.
There were no “dokusans”. If they were really dokusans, you wouldn’t divulge their contents publicly! That’s the A,B,C of being a Zen teacher or a Catholic priest for that matter!
Why don’t you write a line or two about the Gita and Krishna (aka. The Dark One aka Mara)? Is that the highest teaching? How would you categorize that?
Dear Methexis,
Although the karmic remnants upon his body might pain him now and then, the Mind of my former most talented student and author of this excellent blog is in good order.
What ever he writes, even if it saves the life of a single sentient being one day in the future , is worth all the effort and slander he might have to endure from beings of shall we say lesser spiritual insight.
It seems that ‘the perfect teaching’, and your latest spiritual fling, is not bringing out the best of you.
To insult the krishna consciousness and hence indirectly the intrinsic light of the great Brhama Vishnu, which I have percieved in my sambhokaya dhyanas, is not wise, and surely you will have to pay for that impulse you seem not able to hold back.
Remember that the Buddha in Hinduism is sometimes viewed as an avatar of MahaBrahma Vishnu.
In the Puranic texts, the Buddha is mentioned as one of the ten avatars of Vishnu, possessing great Bodhi.
Now when we look at Vishnus spiritual incarnation known as Krishna in the world and Krishna consciousness in the sambhokaya continuum, the black skin you refer to on Krishna, is just a symbol in early hindu paintings of this 8th incarnation of the Brahma Vishnu the maintainer, being as SUCH, fully aware of the Dark Principle of the One Mind, that permeates all ten directions of the three kayas and certainly this Universe, thus regulating its mechanincs on the subatomic quantum plane.
Nothing strange with that and certainly not making this highly blissful super mind , Mara the evil one (laughs).
Around 150 BC the great Patanjali wrote in his Mahabhasya; “May the might of Krishna accompanied by Samkarshana increase!” Do you even know what that means, and why a great yogi like Patanjali would even utter that?
I have seen Mara many times and especially in my youth when I struggled with my christian orthodox faith versus Buddhism and challenged IT (Mara) to show ITself ( i was young and stupid, what can I say). I can assure you – Krishna and the distinct super consciousness attributed as Krishna is nothing Mara the buddhist devil. Believe me, you do not want to mediate on this devil and one day when you sleep wake up in the night with IT staring right at you. There are many stories about advanced yogins having such encounters with Mara on their path to enlightenment.
I think I wrote an article on it and Bodhi child made a youtube video on it (not sure).
If you currently are suffering , and I believ you are, you should know that Tendai have many good dharanis that can remove and heal your mind from pernicious anti-spiritual infestetations on the mind.
I suggest you use one of them upon yourself as to heal very soon or Mara might come calling in person and completely destroy your life.
I hope this comment is a sufficent answer to your question and various remarks.
Again you display your Greek dance and show the limitations of the Separate Teaching in this manner. Always faithfully following the script. The threat (“your insult … will result in hell!”) and then your self-elevation, of course. I wonder though, when Vajragoni said “I was stupid to follow you” – where did that come from? “Not bringing the best out of me” only means I don’t worship you. What you’re writing here is elevation of Hinduism which the Zennist Yangshou Yongming called ” a perverted path ” ! Why do you care about how Hinduism sees Buddha ? The important thing is HOW BUDDHA / BUDDHISM SEES HINDUISM !
“If you are currently suffering” – of course I am! Only a nut proponent of the Separate Teaching could even utter that! Suffering is with this body always!
I really do hope Mara will come because that will be nothing but the coming of the Lord Buddha Himself! If you spent time studying Tiantai you would know the teaching of Zhili of Tiantai that “Other than the devil, there is no Buddha; other than the Buddha, there is no devil.”
And we come full circle. Krishna (Mara) might not be so far away from Buddha after all!
Methexis, your current haranguing and “baiting” throughout this whole “Krishna” episode began with your “jealous suspicions” that my decision to write this present series began after my inspiration concerning your dialog with N.Yeti on the Zennist blog concerning the Gita—somehow with a warped belief that I am favoring him over you—which is perfectly ridiculous. I don’t even think you’re aware of how sophomoric your antics have been.
You’re only partially correct. Indeed there was something silly within my initial impulse to post (not exactly jealousy but nvm) – however that doesn’t mean it can all be reduced to that! You could say I used my own stupidtiy to perform – to manifest something. All went according to plans. You & N. Yeti & Tozen are all enlightened to the Unborn Buddha Mind, while I am a philosopher who chilngs to conceptual constructs. This situation is very interesting to me.
I forgot to include Zennist in the clan of Black Dragonz!
To quote you, “Vajragoni”:
“Everything is unfolding as it should.”
Don’t pull me into this, I’m a civilian.
We’re fighting for you pretty boy. You ain’t nothing but a heart-breaker.
I thought it was because you have not yet accepted that buddhism is a dissident sect of hinduism.
It’s not. Buddhism is a Dharma that’s being hijacked by materialists (secularists, Batchelor etc.) on one side and by Hindus (eternalists like you & Vajra & Tozen & maybe Zennist) on the other side.
Read the Lanka and Nirvana Sutras and think what it means when Buddha repeats over and over his Self is not the same as the Self of nonbuddhists.
He explicitly says he uses the word Self to attract nonbuddhists like you! I guess it worked!
There is no hinduism, really. This is just a convenient name, like “india”, imposed upon the dharma, as a means of exclusion. This internacine skirmish demonstrated there is not one buddhism, but many. May we now begin collecting our wounded? How can we say there is one hinduism? These are dharmas, and as they seek a singular teleological purpose of continuous spiritual evolution, any difference is in approach, and therefore subjective. Chan recognizes this as well but I am as much a heretic as you and have with utter certainty not reached even the first dhyana. Thus my views are philosophical, and skewered by the lanka. Even so I take refuge in the infinite and do not fear it, neither taunting devils nor spurning the mystical cycles.
buddha is completely opaque on the self and negates just about anything you can conceptualize of mind including scriptures. That does not disqualify hinduism, it points out the mystical, absolute essence of buddhism, which does not obviate meditation upon the vedas.
Good, you’re honest. I really respect that. It’s the sine qua non of an authentic engagement with the Dharma. I too claim no attainment whatsoever. I’m as (un)enlightened as a block of wood.
The problem for me is that then you go on and say “mystical, absolute essence of buddhism” – aren’t you talking out of your league?
What “absolute essence” you know about if you haven’t even reached the first jhana?
Why can’t we be brutally honest with each other? I think that’s more productive than talking of absolute suchnesses and supramundane essences.
You say “absolute essence” and Vajragoni applauds, and so you create what on Reddit is called a “circle-jerk” – then you pat each other’s back.
I see this in spiritual circles all the time. When I’m docile and servile Tozen says I am advancing on the Path, if I challenge him I am regressing and so on.
But this is all psychological stuff not so interesting I reckon. All three of you are brilliant minds btw. – and eloquent, talented individuals, albeit Hindus.
You are right in saying Hinduism is a Western categorization, this is a very difficult topic, too difficult for me to dissect now.
I would propose we ask ourselves whether the Buddhas, Patriarchs and Masters thought the Upanishads and Buddha-Dharma are the same or not.
It’s easy to say “All is One” but then is Scientology same as Dharma?
Oneness does not obliterate differences.
It is said Tan-Luan burned all his Taoist texts when he converted to Buddhism. Where’s the ecumenical spirit there?
And why do the Sutras speak about tirthikas (Jains) negatively, ie. that they don’t understand?
Hui-Hai vehemently rejects that “Tao” and “Buddha-Dharma” are one in his record. Zennists constistently denied that Taoism “is the same”.
I respect Christian mystics but I call them Christian mystics.
Similarly I respect you Hindus but I call you “Hindu” not Buddhist.
My final point is this: Tozen and Vajragoni (and perhaps you) claim access to some “Absolute” from which it is evident that all these spiritual traditions are one.
For us ordinary people that vista is inacessible. From our POV there are differences. Are there not? Or are you claiming access to that Spirit Realm of the Black Dragonz?
Reification takes infinite forms. That vessel is the shape of its content.
Reification is the mother of all illusions.
When you say “vessel”, it is already content.
Tat avat asi.
Not Buddha-Dharma.
So many negatives, which it itself reveals the closed mind. Zen in inclusive, not exclusive. This text is testament.