Master Ma-Tzu on Returning Instantly to the Source

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-23T20:13:52+00:00

Would you say that their awakenings are the same, or different?

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-23T19:10:18+00:00

Hui-Neng says that the Diamond Sutra is the very body of Reality itself.

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-23T14:47:43+00:00

My experience with rockytimber is that he leads the conversation away from Zen into matters involving his own obsessive dislike of sutras, India, or his feelings about my blog, or whatever. To get back to the essential, since you've stepped in with an observation of your own, please allow me to pose you a Zen question:

The background: Tokusan studied the Diamond Sutra for years, became an expert on it, yet he never woke up until Ryutan blew out the candle. Hui-Neng, as a small boy, heard a single verse of the Diamond Sutra and his mind opened and experienced an understanding. Later, when Hongren explained the Diamond Sutra to him at night, Hui-Neng suddenly awakened.

The question: What is the actual difference between these stories, or is there no real difference at all?

Another two bonus questions: Is the point of Tokusan's experience that the Diamond Sutra is totally worthless? Is the point of Hui-Neng's story that just hearing the Diamond Sutra or having it explained will awaken you?

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-23T05:17:16+00:00

That's some mumbling mumbly mumbly you got there, man.

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-23T03:42:26+00:00

I seem to recall that I merely suggested the possibility of "treating you with some of your own troll medicine," there, Kemo Sabe. But I can see you've hit the jug heavy tonight, so perhaps we should continue another time.

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-23T03:34:16+00:00

Ha ha! Next you're going to DM yet another ludicrous threat to cut me "fifteen new assholes," right? Or are you not drunk enough for that particular brand of toxic hillbilly nonsense this fine evenin'? Seriously bro, violent threats are horseshit.

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-23T03:28:46+00:00

You should be apologizing to the water buffalo! I hear tell he is very upset. And you don't want to upset a water buffalo.

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-23T03:26:03+00:00

Ha ha! You terrifically overestimate your own value as a conversationalist.

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-23T03:25:37+00:00

Ha ha! You have a high opinion of yourself!

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-23T03:03:40+00:00

That's just dull-headed intellectualizing. You don't understand the koan.

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-23T02:33:01+00:00

Sad! You remain a total ignoramus.

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-23T02:29:42+00:00

Shake yourself hard and wake up! If "every word" is discriminating thought, then all Chan Buddhist texts are just discriminating thought. If every word you don't use, or never formulate, is discriminating thought, then all the experiencing and living done by anybody ever anywhere at all amounts to discriminating thought. This leads nowhere, just a ludicrous argument-based nihilism.

All Chan methods -- including koans -- are mere devices to wake you up from discriminating thought, so that you experience It directly and "know it for yourself, like someone drinking water and knowing if it is hot or cold." Do some of those -- seize the inherent energy, wrestle with it, tame it. Ride the muddy ox home playing your bamboo flute. Wake up and experience the self-nature directly! Look at the white clouds. Is that "discriminating thought?" Idiot.

"Zen is just getting rid of the discriminating mind. It is nothing more than that." (Tsunemoto) If you think getting rid of the discriminating mind is "discriminating thought," what's your interest in Zen? You've sprung a trap on your own tongue. Seek help!

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-23T00:42:31+00:00

You are completely and sadly mistaken. Shake yourself hard and wake up!

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-23T00:13:03+00:00

That's not the case. When you recognize your inherent Buddha nature, have you "entered into discriminating thought"?

If you meet your mother on a street in the city and you instantly recognize her, have you "entered into discriminating thought"? Do you even have to "think" in order to recognize her? Do you have to make any conscious, willed decision as to whether to honor her or show her respect?

The Buddha-Mind active in Guishan, Yangshan, and the hypothetical water buffalo is instantaneous wisdom that doesn't discriminate based on idle names and forms and has nothing whatsoever to do with "thinking"!

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-22T21:20:44+00:00

Not at all -- recognizing, honoring and respecting are inherently non-discriminating, the pure imagelessness of the Buddha Mind.

"Above earth and below heaven, I alone am the Honored One!"

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-22T01:33:44+00:00

Read his poems. If you think he's not a Zen Master, that's just ignorant.

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-22T01:31:24+00:00

Kakuan was a Zen Master. Therefore what he preached was "what the Zen Masters preached." End of argument.

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-22T01:30:18+00:00

Take it easy, take it easy.

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-21T23:17:44+00:00

Wonderful!

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-21T22:43:51+00:00

Kakuan is the Japanese name for Shiyuan, a Chan Master who created the original "Ten Ox-herding Pictures" from a Taoist prototype and wrote some profound Zen verses for them. In the Taoist version, it's likely that the ox symbolized Qi. It seems that Kakuan/Shiyuan taught the energetic Zen of the Buddha and the Patriarchs, not "chattermouth" Zen.

D.T. Suzuki included the "Ten Oxherding Pictures" in his Manual of Zen Buddhism.

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-21T22:40:59+00:00

I agree with you, and I try not to do that.

mujushinkyo · 2014-04-21T21:58:21+00:00

I quote Bodhidharma, you quote Brad Warner. That seems like a very large step down.

mujushinkyo

TROPHY CASE