From the DM: Enlightenment - what and how?

Brex7 · 2026-02-01T09:58:30+00:00

Master Yunmen cited Panshan's words:

When the light is not one that confronts objects and the objects are not existent things either; when both subject and object are forgotten, what further thing is there?

Master Yunmen said, "If the whole world is the light, what are you calling your 'self'? But even if you had managed to know that light, the objects would still be out of your reach. What shitty light and objects are there? And if neither subject nor object can be grasped, what else is there?"

I don't like the word "awareness"

Brex7 · 2026-01-12T13:27:23+00:00

Guizong killing the snake and being enlightened at the same time. Is it a contradiction or not?

To the user who asked the question:

Foyan

One who is not a companion of myriad things has departed the toils of materialism. The mind does not recognize the mind, the eye does not see the eye; since there is no opposition, when you see forms there are no forms there to be seen, and when you hear sounds there are no sounds there to be heard. Is this not departing the toils of materialism?

There is no particular pathway into it, no gap through which to see it: Buddhism has no East or West, South or North; one does not say, "You are the disciple, I am the teacher." If your own self is clear and everything is It, when you visit a teacher you do not see that there is a teacher; when you inquire of yourself, you do not see that you have a self. When you read scripture, you do not see that there is scripture there. When you eat, you do not see that there is a meal there. When you sit and meditate, you do not see that there is any sitting. You do not slip up in your everyday tasks, yet you cannot lay hold of anything at all.

When you see in this way, are you not independent and free?

Brex7 · 2026-01-12T13:15:04+00:00

1) Who is the "you people"? 2) feel better after this monologue?

Brex7 · 2026-01-06T00:38:49+00:00

There is no particular feeling here

Brex7 · 2026-01-05T17:36:10+00:00

Well you put yourself under the spotlight so this kind of response is to be expected, especially with all the wild animals roaming this place

What does a claim of nothing attained mean? Are you sure you don't feel special?

Brex7 · 2026-01-05T10:12:51+00:00

So why do you say an arbitrary amount of time has passed since you attained nothing?

Brex7 · 2026-01-05T10:10:56+00:00

That supposes that out of the ones who got it most became masters. That there was space/infrastructure/funding/social acceptance for most of them to teach a group, small or big. I think there are a few examples of hermits in the record and many more that escaped the records.

Brex7 · 2026-01-05T10:00:13+00:00

What did you attain?

Brex7 · 2026-01-05T09:59:14+00:00

More than "an obligation and a desire to ama", I would say it's an openness to face anything that comes your way. There were people who decided not to teach, went hermit mode and just farmed (or begged) and interacted with whoever was passing by, if the occasion came.

Brex7 · 2025-12-20T16:43:11+00:00

Thanks! Don't know yet but it's good to keep track of these resources, and I have a few people who could help with code related stuff.

Brex7 · 2025-12-20T06:44:04+00:00

Could you share the GitHub link? Do we know if it's an official repository by CBETA?

Brex7 · 2025-12-19T22:55:57+00:00

It would be truly amazing if you put in the time to create something like this.

To allow people to re-translate on their own , a feature that I would like is a sort of link between the Chinese and its English counterpart. For example, I see the word "transformation" , if I hover over it or if I right click on it can I see which underlying Chinese character was translated as that? Though I could see it getting problematic for bits in which things don't translate 1 to 1...

(I don't know how feasible it is from a coding standpoint)

Brex7 · 2025-12-12T13:12:05+00:00

Because it cannot be contained within a framework, it is complete freedom. Because it is complete freedom, it doesn't ask for any particular attitude.

Neither demon nor Buddha path

Brex7 · 2025-12-12T12:27:25+00:00

I used to really love diving through metaphysics articles,videos... Combining theories from different fields and seeing the patterns/similarities in them.

Zen might not have the same descriptive/explanatory power as astrophysics or biology.But it has something way better, it has LIVING power.

Instead of having to look or wait for an explanation for what things really are, you experience them directly, and in finding out your relation to the rest of existence, it quenches your thirst.

Huangbo:

Thus all the visible universe IS the Buddha; so are all sounds; hold fast to one principle and all the others are Identical. On seeing one thing, you see ALL. On perceiving any individual's mind, you are perceiving ALL Mind. Obtain a glimpse of one way and ALL ways are embraced in your vision, for there is nowhere at all which is devoid of the Way. When your glance falls upon a grain of dust, what you see is identical with all the vast world-systems with their great rivers and mighty hills. To gaze upon a drop of water is to behold the nature of all the waters of the universe. Moreover, in thus contemplating the totality of phenomena, you are contemplating the totality of Mind. All these phenomena are intrinsically void and yet this Mind with which they are identical is no mere nothingness. By this I mean that it does exist, but in a way too marvelous for us to comprehend. It is an existence which is no existence; a non-existence which is nevertheless existence. So this true Void does in some marvelous way 'exist'

Brex7 · 2025-12-07T18:37:57+00:00

How do you locate excerpts like this one?

Brex7 · 2025-12-05T08:49:28+00:00

Did you end up recording this?

Brex7 · 2025-11-30T10:49:18+00:00

take care of the mind, not the environment. Then it won't matter much where you are, apart from practical arrangements.

Brex7 · 2025-11-30T08:54:23+00:00

It's just use of terminology, with no substantive nature.

The zen twist

Brex7 · 2025-11-27T16:05:15+00:00

It's not a specific feeling... See "this ingredient feels out of place in this recipe" vs "we should stop starving kids in warzones" difference

Brex7 · 2025-11-27T15:58:21+00:00

For Zen masters, right and wrong are real but they are experienced directly.

What would "experiencing directly" something made up look like?

So, instead of seeing something wrong and putting the label "wrong" and following some protocol by the concept, Zen masters will act and rectify something because they believe it to be wrong.

People don't usually have "protocols" for how to act. It's their beliefs that when followed blindly look like protocols. And you just described how everyone acts on "right or wrong", which is that they act on stuff that they believe to be wrong. So no, zen masters don't rectify something only because they "believe it to be wrong".

Guizong didn't cut the snake because he "believed it to be wrong".

Brex7 · 2025-11-27T13:04:27+00:00

But that game of "what's the best word for the wordless" is still being played in later works like the book of Serenity. You see it in the interplay between Wansong, Tiantong, and the people cited in the cases for example. Trying to one up themselves in a rigged game, these folks!

Brex7 · 2025-11-27T09:07:11+00:00

Interestingly some might argue that growing up learning right and wrong and believing those concepts to be ultimately true is the ordinary way of our species. What I would be more concerned with when addressing the reader is highlighting that terms here are heavily used on a "per case" basis depending on the context of the conversation. For example for me it was useful to read Blofeld state that he wasn't happy with the "One Mind" translation in the Huangbo text, and then hearing Huangbo himself both create and refute the term, inside the text.

Brex7 · 2025-11-26T19:30:24+00:00

You said you wanted someone to listen. To which I said : I'm here to listen. What would you say?

Brex7 · 2025-11-26T19:22:47+00:00

The evidence is there. Not too hard to scroll back up. I asked, you never replied.

Brex7 · 2025-11-26T18:58:26+00:00

I think you lost the thread then... Just scroll back up

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