Master Chien-ju
" Do you want to study Zen? You must let go. Let go of what? Let go of the four elements and five clusters, let go of consciousness conditioned over incalculable time. Focus on right where you stand and try to figure out what the reason is. Keep on pondering, and suddenly the flower of mind will bloom with enlightenment, illuminating the whole universe.
This can be called getting it in the mind, responding to it in action. Thereupon you can turn the earth into gold and churn the rivers into cream. Wouldn't that just make life exhilarating?
Do not memorize sayings, recite words, and discuss Zen and the Way based on books. The Zen Way is not in books. Even if you can recite the teachings of the whole canon and all the masters and philosophers, they are just useless words of no avail when you are facing death.
The ancients sought illumined guides only after they themselves had awakened and understood, in order to pick out the rubble and completely purify their realization of truth.
When they could measure pounds and ounces accurately, they where like people opening variety stores carrying all sorts of goods."
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Master Pai Chang
" IN reading scriptures and studying the doctrines, you should turn all words right around and apply them to yourself. All the verbal teachings point to the inherent nature of the immediate mirroring awareness. As long as this is not affected by anything, existent or otherwise, it is your guide. It can shine through all realms whether they exist or not.
This is adamantine wisdom, wherein you have your share of freedom and independence. If you understand in this way, then even if you could recite the whole canon and all it's branches of knowledge, that would only make you conceited.
Paradoxically it shows contempt for Buddha; it is not true practice."
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Master Ying-an
" The verbal teachings of Buddhas and Zen masters that have come down from the past are like bits of tile used to knock on a door; it is a matter of expediency that we use them as entrances into truth.
For some years now, students have not been getting to the root and aim of Zen, instead taking the verbal teachings of Buddhas and Zen masters to be the ultimate rule.
That is like ignoring a hundred thousand pure clear oceans and only focusing on a single bubble."
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Isn't that the most annoying sound ever made?....No wonder it make the observer go searching for the source; to shut that thing up....never to Save Our Ship.
Saving lives was only a side quest.
** Picture this; A medium sized bald little monk kid skimpering down some long brightly sunlit arched corridor that they build into temple/monastery places for the express purpose of this imagery before you. She has cradled under her arm a medium sized lightweight box, she is trying to keep it covered with the sash of her orange robe. Sneaking into a room whose ornate sign in calligraphy denotes as " The Zafu Room" and stuck upon that placard some unknown monk posted " Please wipe the seat after use."
The brothers are all in the "arguing room" the young monk calls it. Brother Ewk wants to burn the room down, and maybe he should no one ever comes in here anymore. She arranges the pillows into a little private zafu fort. She pretends is it vulture peak. And she dumps her box a the foot of zafu mountain.A box of zen master barbie dolls tumble and she chooses Chien, Pa-chang, and Ying.
Wondering absently weather some brothers would not approve, noticing someone without a face has been thru her toys and changed her Bodhidharma's robe into a Hawaiian shirt, ripped off khakis and flip flops. And someone put the Buddha princess crown on Huang-Po. She settles to play.
"What is consciousness conditioned over incalculable time? "
Just a Buddhist thing....not important....well....what do you think it is?
Well, a quick google lends this.. "
“Buddhists argue that nothing is constant, everything changes through time, you have a constantly changing stream of consciousness,” Evan Thompson, a philosophy of mind professor at the University of British Columbia, tells Quartz. “And from a neuroscience perspective, the brain and body is constantly in flux"
How long have i been conscious? My whole life. Has my mind been conditioned during my known existence? Yeah. (just turn every teaching to yourself)
What is a sangha for? To discuss the study of the mind/consciousness. To compare notes, apply zen master support, help each other discover going beyond.
What is adamantine wisdom?
Well quick google offers...(and it is pretty darn long if you crave more description)
Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra
" It is one ultimately pure. It does not shake. It does not receive, nor does it do [act]. It does not abide, does not make. It is tasteless and unmixed. It is an “is” and yet is not something created. It is neither action nor fruition [i.e. it is beyond Karma]. It is not one made, not one that dies. It is no mind; it is one not countable [whose dimensions can be reckoned];
It is the All-Wonderful, the one Eternal, and the one not presumable. It is not consciousness and is apart from mind. And yet it does not depart from mind. It is a mind that is all-equal. It is not an “is”; yet it is what is “is”. There is no going and no coming [with it]; and yet it goes and comes. It does not break up. It is one indestructible. It does not snap and does not cease. It does not come out, nor does it die out. It is no master and yet a master.
It is not one that exists; nor does it not exist. It awakes not, nor does it see. It is no letter, and is not no letter. It is no dhyana [meditation] and is not no dhyana. It cannot be seen and can be well seen. It is no place and yet is a place. It is no abode and yet is an abode. It is not dark and not bright. There is no quietness and yet there is quietness [in it]. It is non-possession, non-receiving, and non-giving. It is pure and untainted.
It is no quarreling and is never fighting. It is what is living and is not what is living. It is no taking and no falling. It is no thing and is not no thing."
The sutra was the Buddha talking about the Tathagata's body. Perhaps it is not too much error to infer that that body of the tathagata is made of dharma. Therefore the adamantine wisdom embodied. Yet this is also just a way to say it...you still have to go on to apply it to your own self.
Which is apparently easy peazy for some brothers who just notice that they already are adamantine just by memorizing HuangPo and farting.
Well I am out of thoughts. I didn't have anything add or expand really. There are terms i am not sure about, and would just be tickled to death if the comment section had opinions or self informed ideas about what it means to them and how it may apply. Or even better...supporting quotes.
Does anyone want to tackle...What is Mirroring Awareness?
I think it has something to do with a clear awareness not in rumination, or mind games, simply in the here, is responsive and receptive to information. Synchronicity perhaps, or events of being in the right place with the right response at the right time just because you have no-thing going on but going on.
Yet also I would think that grasping and chasing and depending on such to support or comfort your mind ( ie a nest) would be wrong. But also incorrect is to toss out every mind-symbol you work with.
** little bald kid-monk packs up her zen master barbie dolls as the sun dips into a more comfortable hue and she restores the zafu room to it's ignored state and prepares for the evening meal.
she expects crickets, no one ever comes in here anymore.**
