It can fairly be stated that, the more you get involved in worldly matters, the further you are from the Truth.
The more engrossed your mind becomes in physical, mental and psychic matters, all which shuts out the sublime light of the Unborn Mind, the lesser able you become in terms of breaking free from this prison world you have chosen to inhabit. In the blazing reality of Spirit there can be no compromise; you cannot serve two masters, for you will end up failing both, or being absorbed by one or the other.
A Ch’an Master once said:
“Those who are determined to practice the Way, practice self-awareness and self-understanding twenty-four hours a day.”
They think of THIS and focus on THIS. They know that the First Cause is there right where they stand, that it comes before the most minute wave particle to the greatest celestial body in the Universe they perceive. They know that it is within sages without being augmented and in ordinary people without being diminished. They know that it stands alone; free of senses and sense objects, and that it far transcends material things.
In the beginning of your practice you need to disable or bypass the senses of the external man of biological structure in order to see who or what exactly you really are, which in essence is the man standing on your shoulders. Indeed it is on the surface of a quiet mind that spiritual images form. It is said that Great beings are born at the midnight hour. In ancient China there was talk of the “Living Midnight” that promoted the dark principle which instantly could dispel the false light of any day or night, symbolizing that it is in the minds perfect silence that your spirit is ready to meet its own true self.
Today’s world is built as to generate anxiety and profitable ways to temporarily loosen the grip of anxiety. Anxiety, much like anger, hate, greed and strong desires is the foe of right knowledge; like a veil saturated with a strong poison, it falls down before the mind’s eye and poisons its right view of things…
Entertain it and the poison only becomes stronger and the delusion becomes deeper;
Cast it out and the sun of truth may dissipate the clouds of perverted vision.
Zen employs many methods to realize ones “original face” or true self. Gong ‘an (koans) are one of these methods. Koans are mostly short stories or sayings that cannot be understood or solved by using the intellect, but, like a sharp and undivided sword, are there to slay the beast which is the interfering body consciousness with its countless blinding permutations of light and darkness.
The body consciousness is the great slayer of the Real”, says the dormant Master within you.
If that is true, then let the Disciple slay the slayer and like any bodhisattva or Buddha before you, finally break the bonds of delusion…
Dissolving away…
The false face…