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Wrote a comment to someone posting about non-meditation who emphasized the point "How ridiculous and deluded to think that practices,
meditation, study or realizations can improve the perfect awareness that
is always what you already are."
I wrote:
"On the one extreme is the view that through practices one can somehow reach Buddha-nature in the future, which comes with the sense of distance, time, separation, and sense of self. Buddha-nature is all-pervasive and whole in its immediacy, how can it be reached in the future through practice?
On the other extreme is of a static, immobile Buddha-nature separate from the ordinary activities of sitting, walking, sleeping, chopping wood and carrying water. Nothing is clearer and more direct than these simple activities when subject and object is severed. We walk not in order to achieve enlightenment but as a manifestation of our true nature.
When sitting, sitting is sitting, not me sitting. Recently I visited a Zen master. He asked a group of students, (pointing at a bell) what is this? Some said it's a bell, he replied you are attached to name and form. If you only hit the floor or remain mute, he says you are attached to emptiness. I simply picked it up and rang it. He said "Correct!" So, a "zen" answer will be just ring it -- there is just the ringing, no subject and object, only spontaneous action, only sound. Non-meditation and non-practice is not lazing all day doing nothing, but severing the delusion of subject and object. When the gap between actor and action is refined till none, that is non-action, non-meditation and that non-action is at the same time total action.
In that act of ringing, is the ringing, and mind two or one? Again if we say they are one or two, we fall into dualism or concepts. Just ring it - that's enough. That total action reveals the true face of mind, the true face of the bell, the true face of ringing. If there is still a sense of an actor achieving a goal through an action, that is not non-meditation or practice-enlightenment.
Dogen:
"Zen master Baoche of Mt. Mayu was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, "Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. When, then, do you fan yourself?"
"Although you understand that the nature of the wind is permanent," Baoche replied, "you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere."
"What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?" asked the monk again. The master just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply.
The actualization of the buddha-dharma, the vital path of its correct transmission, is like this. If you say that you do not need to fan yourself because the nature of wind is permanent and you can have wind without fanning, you will understand neither permanence nor the nature of wind. The nature of wind is permanent; because of that, the wind of the buddha's house brings forth the gold of the earth and makes fragrant the cream of the long river."
....
A monk said to Chao Chou, “I have just entered this monastery. Please teach me.”
Chao Chou said, “Have you eaten your rice gruel?”
The monk said, “Yes, I have.”
Chao Chou said, “Wash your bowl.”
The monk understood."
I wrote:
"On the one extreme is the view that through practices one can somehow reach Buddha-nature in the future, which comes with the sense of distance, time, separation, and sense of self. Buddha-nature is all-pervasive and whole in its immediacy, how can it be reached in the future through practice?
On the other extreme is of a static, immobile Buddha-nature separate from the ordinary activities of sitting, walking, sleeping, chopping wood and carrying water. Nothing is clearer and more direct than these simple activities when subject and object is severed. We walk not in order to achieve enlightenment but as a manifestation of our true nature.
When sitting, sitting is sitting, not me sitting. Recently I visited a Zen master. He asked a group of students, (pointing at a bell) what is this? Some said it's a bell, he replied you are attached to name and form. If you only hit the floor or remain mute, he says you are attached to emptiness. I simply picked it up and rang it. He said "Correct!" So, a "zen" answer will be just ring it -- there is just the ringing, no subject and object, only spontaneous action, only sound. Non-meditation and non-practice is not lazing all day doing nothing, but severing the delusion of subject and object. When the gap between actor and action is refined till none, that is non-action, non-meditation and that non-action is at the same time total action.
In that act of ringing, is the ringing, and mind two or one? Again if we say they are one or two, we fall into dualism or concepts. Just ring it - that's enough. That total action reveals the true face of mind, the true face of the bell, the true face of ringing. If there is still a sense of an actor achieving a goal through an action, that is not non-meditation or practice-enlightenment.
Dogen:
"Zen master Baoche of Mt. Mayu was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, "Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. When, then, do you fan yourself?"
"Although you understand that the nature of the wind is permanent," Baoche replied, "you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere."
"What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?" asked the monk again. The master just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply.
The actualization of the buddha-dharma, the vital path of its correct transmission, is like this. If you say that you do not need to fan yourself because the nature of wind is permanent and you can have wind without fanning, you will understand neither permanence nor the nature of wind. The nature of wind is permanent; because of that, the wind of the buddha's house brings forth the gold of the earth and makes fragrant the cream of the long river."
....
A monk said to Chao Chou, “I have just entered this monastery. Please teach me.”
Chao Chou said, “Have you eaten your rice gruel?”
The monk said, “Yes, I have.”
Chao Chou said, “Wash your bowl.”
The monk understood."
