Once in a Lanka...

 
     In the middle of the ocean of life and death there was a priest musician named David Byrne, who rising from his meditations saw before him an orchestra, a choir of gods, bodhisatvhas, buddhas and their accompanying beauties and perfumes. He was inspired to a realization of no self and he spoke a verse to Buddha.

""And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
  And you may find yourself in another part of the world
  And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
  And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
  And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?"""

     And the Buddha replied " Excellent David Byrne. It is excellent, upon considering the true nature of the world and hoping to awaken beings of the past, present and the future from mistaken views,you have asked me about this. For a wise man should ask questions. Not only for his own benefit but also for that of others."
 
      Zen Master Ku-shan, who is in the assembly spoke..."What is the basic operation of investigation?" and chuckling to himself, answered himself..."How one has gotten to such a state."

     And the Buddha explained " You see how ignorant people distinguish things, things as fragile and impermanent as a clay pot, do you not? The distinctions among dharmas and non-dharmas are the projections of foolish people and not how things are viewed according to Buddha Knowledge, but in terms of characteristics."

     The Stenographer, being confused by this statement asked her own question to the assembly saying..." Buddha, do you mean that the one who finds themself behind the wheel of a large automobile is projecting from his own mind what it means in terms of the characterization of the automobile. That is to say, this is a 18 wheeler therefore I am a truck driver and a assume the society of truck drivers? But the buddha knowledge is that truck and finding oneself in it are not because you are a truck driver but you are independent of where you find yourself?"

     Buddha continued """Consider the continuity of a seed,as it gives rise to such varying forms as sprouts, stems, joints, branches, leaves, buds, flowers, and fruits.
     And as with external objects, the same is true of internal objects, whereby ignorance gives rise to such dharmas as well as to the varieties of existence in the three realms and to differences in terms of suffering and joy, good and evil, speech and silence.
      So, too, consciousness and its objects are the same but differ depending on distinctions as to which is superior, neutral or inferior, defiled or pure, good or bad.
      How much more then are dharmas and non-dharmas marked by a multitude of
distinctions? Thus, David Byrne, the different characteristics of dharmas and non-dharmas are the result of projection. What then, is a dharma? A dharma is whatever ordinary people and followers of lesser and heterodox paths imagine."""

     The Stenographer,"Oh ok, it is like the story about stepping on the eggplant thinking it was a frog. Because the monk held a dharma of precepts and imagined himself to have broken one, his mind played for him all the dealing and acceptance and experience of guilt and redemption. But there was no frog, he projected the experience. All the same if he really did kill a frog the imagination in his mind is still imagination.It would not be  dharma till the next day when seeing the  dead frog body that the act of the dharma could happen. And if one is not attaching even further it can be handled with a simple burial."

 """Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
    Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
    Into the blue again, after the money's gone
    Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground

    And you may ask yourself, "How do I work this?"
    And you may ask yourself, "Where is that large automobile?"
    And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful house"
    And you may tell yourself, "This is not my beautiful wife""""

    The Buddha Replied. "Basically, they think a dharma has existence and
substance and arises from causes. Such things must be
abandoned and avoided. Don’t engage in the projection of
appearances or become attached to what are perceptions of
your own mind. The things people grasp, such as clay pots, lack
any real substance. To view dharmas like this is to abandon
them.
   And what,David Byrne, is a non-dharma? This refers to
what has no discernible body of its own, what has no
distinguishable characteristics, what is not subject to causation,
and what offers no basis for views of its existence or
nonexistence. Therefore, it is also to be abandoned. Non-
dharmas are things like horns on a rabbit."""

   Zen Master Foyan, who was in the assembly said "The minute you fixate on the recognition that "This is 'it'" you are immediately bound hand and foot and cannot move around anymore. So as soon as it is given this recognition, nothing is right, whatever it may be. If you don't fixate on recognition, you can still be saved.
    It is like making a boat and outfitting it for a thousand mile journey to treasure trove; if you drive a stake and tie the boat to it before you jump in and start rowing, you can row till kingdom come and still be on the beach.You see the boat waving this way and that, and you think you are on the move, but you've never gone a single step.



""Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down
   Letting the days go by, water flowing underground
   Into the blue again, after the money's gone
   Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground

   Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
   Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
   Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
   Same as it ever was, same as it ever was

   Water dissolving and water removing
   There is water at the bottom of the ocean
   Under the water, carry the water
   Remove the water from the bottom of the ocean
   Water dissolving and water removing

   You may ask yourself, "What is that beautiful house?"
   You may ask yourself, "Where does that highway go to?"
   And you may ask yourself, "Am I right, am I wrong?"
   And you may say to yourself, "My God, what have I done?"""

    The buddha continued. """ David Byrne, you say you have asked the tathagatas, about this in the past, and they have also answered you. What you call the past
is a projection. And just as the past is a projection, so are the future and the present. David Byrne, the tathagatas do not project what amounts to reality.
    They transcend projection and fabrication and do not go along with distinguishing forms, except to instruct or to pacify the ignorant. It is by means of such wisdom that tathagatas practice a formless practice. Thus, tathagatas consider knowledge as their
real body.
    And because they consider knowledge as their real body, they are free from projection or anything that projects, such as a self, a life, or a person or any kind of consciousness that gives rise to forms dependent on an objective world. Thus,they are free from what projects and what is projected. David Byrne, everything in the world is like an illusion. This is beyond the understanding of ignorant beings and the followers of other paths. David Byrne, to see things like this is to see them as they really are. To see otherwise is to see them as they are not, to engage in projection, and to become attached to these two kinds of dharmas.
   David Byrne, this is like seeing an image in a mirror or a reflection in
water or like seeing a figure in the moonlight or a shadow on a wall or like hearing an echo in a valley. People attached to the images of their own projections cling to dharmas and non-dharmas. Unable to abandon them, they continue to engage in projection and fail to attain tranquility.
    Tranquility means oneness,and oneness means the tathagata-garbha, the realm
of self–realization of buddha knowledge"""

    Zen Master Yangqi Added. "Mind is the faculty, phenomena are the data: both are like scratches on a mirror. When there are no scratches or dust the clarity of the mirror shows. When mind and phenomena are both forgotten, then your nature is real."

   And as we all sat back to reflect, Master Joshu brought his best brew out, asking if we had our tea yet. And the choir reverberated and faded away.

 """Same as it ever was, same as it ever was
    Same as it ever was, look where my hand was
    Time isn't holding up, time isn't after us

    Same as it ever was, same as it ever was (I couldn't get no rest)
    Same as it ever was, hey let's all twist our thumbs
    Here comes the twister...."""




                        .this post was for fun.
                       .not sure it makes sense.

On Top of Mt. Lanka...

 ....With Ravana king, We listened to Buddha and Mahamati.

      They spoke of perceptions, that come from the mind 

      All kind of things, leaving other paths behind

      Mahamati asked questions, 'bout one hundred and eight

     When Buddha answered, world views did abate

      Red Pine did the translate from manuscripts three

      He stuck with Gunabhadra, before Bodhidharmeee

     Heard the Northern School,  Called him first Patriarch

     Surely such a thing stings r/zen's zenly heart

     Now here is the end of this poem you see

     Let's take a walk, have a talk with Lankavatareee 

 

     (i hope you sang that to On top of Spaghetti)

    I have been gone a little while. Bet no one missed me. I am unmissable. I have been messing around with the twitter stuff. Got caught up in all kinds of mean and nasty things to study and look at and see thru and all kinds of mental places to go visit.

Was fun.  Got boring. Got interrupted when I started to pick up the Lanka with some glint of seriousness.  I started about four weeks ago voice chatting once a week with someone from these illustrious halls, we are going thru this sutra. But I have been fairly dis-diligent. See I had somethings to work out by letting go of. And I think these things are the kinds of stuff that Buddha talks about.

  I really enjoy reading the sutras that I have so far looked at, I like the notion of this was a Buddha...a clear mind expressing it's explanation about how it's mind works.  Sometimes I feel like it is a bunch of  illogical couplets.  "There is no self because if there was a self then the realization that there is no self could not happen...." I mean something like that makes me wonder if it is a word con.

But then sometimes I stare at it long enough and I almost understand it like it was my own language.

My weekly study partner always wants to put  a zen master quote to it but  that losses me some. I read the words as zen master words breaking the non-it down into tiny pieces, where the zen master is the instant short and  snappy sweet version.  I don't know how to add a Foyan verse to Buddha explaining that all views are projections.They are saying the same thing.  I wonder if reading Sutras is what it would sound like to hear Foyan giving a dharma lecture. 

 I hope to make some posts occasionally as I go thru these Sutras, and attempt to focus on various moments that appeal to either some personal event or to garner insight and appropriate ZM quote finding group effort for broadening of discussion, or correction. But that is up to us. Here is an interesting section from the first chapter. The People and the Kings had just collectively witnessed the appearance of the buddha and all the buddha lands. But then it vanished.

38. And after they had spoken / these buddhas and
bodhisattvas vanished / only Ravana the yaksha remained /
standing inside his palace

 
39. He wondered what really happened / who spoke just now and who listened /      who saw and what was seen /and where did those cities and buddhas go:

40. ”Where did those cities go / those radiant
buddhas, those sugatas / were they a dream or an illusion /
or were they the work of gandharvas

41. Were they the result of cataract eyes / or was
what I saw a mirage / dream children of a barren woman /
the smoke and flames from a wheel of fire?

 
42. Such is the nature of things / the realm of nothing
but mind / this is something the foolish don’t know /
bewildered by false projections

 
43. There is no seer or anything seen / no speaker or
anything spoken / the appearance of buddhas and also
their teachings / are merely what we imagine

   44. Those who view such things as real / they don’t
see the Buddha / nor do those who imagine nothing / only
those who transform their existence    

        

         My name is IZM and I have a problem with adopting world views. It started the day I was born, but I only became responsible for it in my teens. You might not believe it but worldviews can be switched out like outfits. They can because they are not reality. They are the lens thru which you view reality, or translate it to yourself. I think that is somewhat of the thing Buddha is talking about in verse 44.  To transform your existence, that not viewing things as real and not imagining there is nothing, leaves you with the original  non-programmed mind.

        So what then would be the appearances of all that groovy stuff? Is it like a worldview?  A story or presentation of information that seems to cause all things to cascade into sensible understanding. One which in turn causes an altered mental relation to the projections one gives and receives. It can have many outcomes. It can be wonderful and full of truth, and fear, and plots. But it is the same as a mirage and not the original mind. So the reality is not like any of the projections we subject ourselves to. That is why the other paths, religions, philosophies cannot  get free from the projection or the having of the Worldviews. Because they become the happening of their projections. Think Part of the ship/Part of the crew.

It is like using the world view to define the internal self in relation to the "reality" presented or accepted. But the internal self  is....well here the Buddha will later on explain how it is not a self anyway so how could it be bound to any worldview. But I think that is later in the book.

Anyway. This is sorta how I tend to break things down. I told another user that I am not a translator that is a half truth I am desirous to paraphrase, is that not a form of translation?

As I mused over this first chapter I got to thinking how it is nearly like a manual on how to not get brainwashed. How to notice the subtle little place where you can tell that your own self view, being originally independent, is being encroached upon by the external. (or internal for that matter)

I also enjoyed this verse. 

" Who sees that the habit-energy of projections of the
beginning-less past is the cause of the three realms and who
understands that the tathagata stage is free from projections or
anything that arises, attains the personal realization of buddha
knowledge and effortless mastery over their own minds"

Well Alrighty then, I am not sure what more to say at this time. 

Thank you for reading. And tell me your favorite bits. Mind you, I am hardly familiar with only the first three chapters and ima wanna chew on them a while before I pick up the next one.

Oh Ps, I almost forgot, In chapter two there are the 108 questions of MahaMati. My initial take about them was this person has just stepped into the buddha zone, his mind was all in the oh ahh eee with this chance to ask some questions.  It is like what would you ask, how could you get your whole meaning in there? Do you really want to know or do you really just want to make sure that the Buddha knows?

Listen to the Zen Masters right, what is Buddha?  So, if you could ask Buddha questions, what is it that you really want to know? I tend to think of the questions as like those of a young child.

They don't want to know the science really. They want to build faith that what ever it is they want to know, it is known already by mom and dad.