(Dedicated to those of you, whom are close to death or connected to a close relative, or friend, that in your eyes and consciousness-field is about to die.)
Make no mistake. This body, your present spiritual residence of ignorance, desire and the will that executed said desire and descended the consciousness of your Spirit/Mind into its conditioned abode, is going to die. End. Cease to exist in its born and regenerated spatio-temporal form.
When death comes to your present consciousness – as much as you lie to yourself every second of the day and night that it wont, it certainly will. It will arrive as easily as you willed your own birth into your mother´s womb. Or keep willing any thought or action on a daily basis, taking the outcome for granted as it unfolds, never contemplating the inevitable consequences.
Perhaps you forgot your moment of physical birth from that womb, then… perhaps not. What is essential is that the very consciousness that experienced that pain of being pressed out into a world of conditions and the false bright light signifying this world, so will the very same consciousness experience the pains of death and the false bright lights signifying its [bardo]world.
Yet… in the midst of these lights, which your transmigrated consciousness will inevitably experience as fluently and lucidly (as it used to experience dreams during its corporeal existence), any of the myriad phenomena that will be pouring against it, like a vast crushing wall of water from a great bursting dam (your million times stronger sub-consciousness known as the Alaya-Vijnana receptacle) of infinite storage capacity, is nothing but the same phenomena presented to it during its corporeal existence. though now millions of times stronger, subtler, and deceptive, as there are no filters to suppress their blissful or horrifying appearance as there used to be during the worldly existence of your consciousness.
Remember: if you realize your water-ness nature and become one with this water-ness, then no [water form] wave can harm or affect you. But if not, then you are locked to a defiled consciousness that whether it is walking through a material world, or bardo world, is subject to an array of conditions, all leading to countless destinies of sheer uncertainty and inevitable suffering.
Cosnequently;
Know then that all this is nothing but the LIGHT of Mahayana, your true nature, unfolding itself to you without limitations. Lift a stone and there IT IS, take a step and there it is again, as it is behind a single thought, emotion, memory or breath. Let the wise take heed in this dharma and practice accordingly.
All the ignorance your Spirit decided to build as a house of its liking during its corporeal existence (and pass through), is now the very DIVIDER of this luminous Light (Buddha Mind) that is its very true nature if PERCEIVED and ACCEPTED as purely SUCH (eg. Unborn, pure, undivided by thought or sensation).
The Mind masters of the past knew this and pointed directly to this light and Pure Unborn Mind within each Spirit. For this light is not a light found in the world, nor in the body or its defiled consciousness, but solely and absolute, in the Unborn Consciousness of your true self. Your Buddha Nature.
If your present Spirit choses to cultivate this dharma on a regular basis which is the pursuit, discovery and study of this Light, then the approach and passing through what is known as DEATH, will not take place, as the immortal element of the Buddha-dharma is already at hand and used as a ticket to ride that pure mind-stream that leads straight into the deathless shore of Nirvana.
If not…well, go back and read this article and its instructions again.
Remember; the great mystery of your own true nature is not beyond the purview and capacity of your own pure consciousness. We are talking about the REAL dropping everything at hand and recalling (by means of one-pointed contemplation) the REAL; its own true self.
Beyond this [undivided, pure] LIGHT, your Mind and Spirit needs nothing, and is affected by nothing that affects the defiled sentience and consciousness of those caught in the six realms of ignorance and suffering, be it men or gods.
In dharma,
Tozen
Sadhu! Sadhu! If we are worthy of this Dharma, we have to put it into practice. We should be grateful to read this 2 part teaching and to be able to meet with the Dharma in this life. It’s like winning the cosmic lottery. There are worlds in which even the word “Dharma” doesn’t exist, let alone an elegant & generous pointing to the True Mind such as this one we’re presented here. Let us repay the gratitude by putting this into practice, there’s no other way to repay our gratitude to the Buddhas! We have to realize that Tozen, Vajragoni and other people put a lot of “Dharma effort” into creating this resource that filters dharma from adharma and makes the job easier for us. Yes, practice can be hard, but it’s also a joy, incomparable to others. Can we imagine a better life, than a life of the Dharma, having the chance to practice and some day walk the Bodhisattva path? So how can we waste this beautiful opportunity in useless emotional states like regret, depression, hopelessness, doubt, skepticism, or constructing intellectual castles in the sky? It’s like wanting to eat sushi but trying to fulfill this desire with watching pictures of sushi on the Internet instead of going out to eat actual sushi! The “actual sushi” in this metaphor is samadhi-power; as Tozen said, it is the only weapon we have against Mara. The Shurangama Sutra was spoken to Ananda who had insufficient samadhi-power. All his knowledge and learning couldn’t protect him from falling into erroneous paths. We know Ananda didn’t achieve enlightenment even after hearing the Shurangama. (He achieved it only after Shakyamuni’s parinirvana). We should really come into raw, direct contact with that Light of Mahayana and only then we will be able to ponder the subtleties of Dharma.
Who was I before this body was born?
Who am I after this body was born?
This instantly blocks the machinations of the sixth consciousness as it is unable to think “outside the box”, its box being the psycho-physical aggregation.
A Mahamudra teacher said:
Within the emptiness, there is an electricity, there is a light; can you perceive it? It is full of potential… it is a hunger towards… towards what? Nothing in particular. A hunger, an anticipation, for nothing in particular. It’s a hunger towards towards.
The Zhuangzi put it most beautifully:
“The vital energy is an emptiness, a waiting for the presence of beings.”
Sarwa maitri!
Mahasidhra
_/\_
It’s my homeboy N.Yeti in the house. What’s happening man? How have you been?
Phenomena on every plane of being
are constantly arising and disappearing.
Thus they are ever fresh,
always new and inexhaustible.
Like dreams without solid substance,
they can never become rigid or binding.
The universe exists in a deep, elusive way
that can never be grasped or frozen.
Renounce arbitrary, habitual views.
Go forth courageously to meditate
in the real mountain wilderness,
the wide open Mahamudra.
Transcend boundaries of kinship
by embracing all living beings
as one family of consciousness.
Remain without any compulsion
in the landscape of natural freedom:
spontaneous, generous, joyful.
When you receive the crown of Mahamudra,
all sense of rank or attainment
will quietly disappear.
Cut the root of the vine that chokes the tree,
and its clinging tendrils wither away entirely.
Sever the conventionally grasping mind,
and all bondage and desperation dissolve.
(From Tilopa’s song to Naropa)
Did you know that Tilopa was a pimp by profession?
“As advised by Matangi, Tilopa started to work at a brothel in Bengal for a prostitute called Dharima as her solicitor and bouncer. “
Who once did live in recklessness
And then is reckless nevermore,
He shall illuminate the world
Like the full moon unveiled by cloud.
-dhp 172
Luke 7: “When one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him, he went to the Pharisee’s house and reclined at the table. A woman in that town who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisee’s house, so she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume. As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears. Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them and poured perfume on them.
When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who is touching him and what kind of woman she is—that she is a sinner!”
Jesus answered him, “Simon, I have something to tell you.”
“Tell me, teacher,” he said.
“Two people owed money to a certain moneylender. One owed him five hundred denarii,[c] and the other fifty. Neither of them had the money to pay him back, so he forgave the debts of both. Now which of them will love him more?”
Simon replied, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.”
“You have judged correctly,” Jesus said.
Then he turned toward the woman and said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown.
But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”
Not discriminating at all between the poor and the rich and
wellborn,
Not discriminating between the inferior and the highly
gifted,
Not choosing the learned and those upholding pure precepts,
Nor rejecting those who break precepts and whose evil
karma is profound.
Solely making beings turn about and abundantly think of me,
I can make bits of rubble change into gold.
– Hymn by Tz’u-min, cited by Fa-chao in the Wu-hui fa-shih tsan
“By benefit of Infinite Light the ice of desire is melted to become the water of Nirvana. Our desires are the essence of Nirvana, like the relation of ice and water. The more ice, the more water: the more desire, the more Nirvana.”
If you don’t keep quiet we’ll get a Zen beating.
I welcome judgement.
No amount of inspiring chit chat will mean a thing at the time of death if we have not put it into practice, something difficult to do while going around quoting things others have said. Even so, I will indulge in one more quote, which expresses my gratitude to Tozen (and wish you well):
“One should follow a person of wisdom who rebukes one for one’s faults, as one would follow a guide to some buried treasure. To one who follows such a wise person, it will be an advantage and not a disadvantage.”
Shakyamuni Buddha
You’re quoting while thinking one shouldn’t quote. You’re talking while thinking silence is better. You’re saying “we should put things into practice” while talking about it and not putting it into practice. As I see it, quoting or not quoting, chatting or not chatting, both are not the solution. You can build up Zen guilt (it’s like Catholic guilt) and think you shouldn’t be thinking, you shouldn’t be quoting, you shouldn’t be talking. But then your silence will be bound. Instead why not see that silence and speech are of the same substance? Then you can chat freely. Sometimes it’s OK to be merry and ask a fellow man “How are you doing?” It doesn’t always have to be solemn like being in a church. It’s like role-playing then, or pretending. The light of your true nature will absolve you of the Zen guilt. You can keep “practicing” in that dualistic way until the Year of the Donkey and still you will feel guilt for not practicing enough:
“There’s no language that, isn’t the Dharma. To talk all day without saying anything is the Way. To be silent all day and still say something isn’t the Way. Hence neither does a Tathagata speech depend on silence, nor does his silence depend on speech, nor does his speech exist apart from his silence. Those who understand both speech and silence are in samadhi. If you speak when you know, Your speech is free. If you’re silent when you don’t know, your silence is tied. If speech isn’t attached to appearances its free. If silence is attached to appearances, it’s tied. Language is essentially free. It has nothing to do with attachment. And attachment has nothing to do with language. Reality has no high or low. If you see high or low, It isn’t real. A raft isn’t real. But a passenger raft is. A person who rides such a raft can cross that which isn’t real. That’s why it’s real.”
are you in zensamadhi and how does that feel like? do you become 1 with the templebell. Do you experience yourself as tghe universe ?