Bodhidharma and Mahasattva Fu on the Easy Way

[WhiteLotus]

Greetings friends!


From section 31 of the Long Scroll:

"What do you call the Great Way that is very easy to recognize and easy to practice. but which no one in the world can recognize and practice. Please show it to me."

"These words are right. Living apart from the world and hold the mind aloof to it, not doing a single thing, is called practicing the way.

Not seeing a single thing is called seeing the way.

Not knowing a single thing is called cultivating the way.

Not practicing a single thing is called practicing the way.

It is also called easy to know and is also called easy to practice."

This relates to what Mahasattva Fu taught in his teaching entitled "The Ease of the Road" here I quote 4 out of 15 parts of the teaching:

One: Buddha and emptiness are of one essence; emptiness and Buddha have always been the same. Everything encountered is just so, arising from the self-nature of no-mind. The path is easy; the way is easy, requiring no practice. With neither existence nor nonexistence, the mind is forever at rest. This alone is non-birth.

Two: Sentient beings are the ancestors of the Buddhas; the Buddha is the elder of all beings. The Three Jewels are never separate, and Bodhi is shared by all. The path is easy; the way is easy, for there is truly nothing to do. One upholds the scriptures without moving the mouth, And sits in dhyana while lying down all day.

Three: There is no birth and no place; no place is precisely no birth. If one seeks the place of no birth, that very seeking gives birth to no birth. The path is easy; the way is easy, wide and level. With no-mind, there is true liberation, And self-nature moves freely in all directions.

Four: Bodhi has no fixed place; no place is precisely Bodhi. If one seeks a place for Bodhi, they will remain deluded for lifetimes upon lifetimes. The path is easy; the way is easy, for it is not false. Good and evil are without distinction, This alone is true suchness.

Section 17 of the Wanling lu of Huang Po reads:

Q: At the moment of Enlightenment, where is the Buddha?

A: Whence does your question proceed? Whence does your consciousness arise? When speech is silenced, all movement stilled, every sight and —sound vanished THEN is the Buddha's work of deliverence truly going forward! Then, where will you seek the Buddha? You cannot place a head upon your head, or lips upon your lips; rather, you should just refrain from every kind of dualistic distinction. Hills are hills. Water is water. Monks are monks. Laymen are laymen. But these mountains, these rivers, the whole world itself, together with sun, moon and stars—not one of them exists outside your minds! The vast chiliocosm exists only within you, so where else can the various categories of phenomena possibly be found? Outside Mind, there is nothing. The green hills which everywhere meet your gaze and that void sky that you see glistening above the earth—not a hairsbreadth of any of them exists outside the concepts you have formed for yourself! So it is that every single sight and sound is but the Buddha's Eye of Wisdom.

Phenomena do not arise independently but rely upon environment. And it is their appearing as objects which necessitates all sorts of individualized knowledge. You may talk the whole day through, yet what has been said? You may listen from dawn till dusk, yet what will you have heard? Thus, though Gautama Buddha preached for forty-nine years, in truth no word was spoken.

At the moment of my birth, the air stung my skin, eyes, and lungs. Sounds were sharp, and voices sounded like painful groaning and grunts. The blurry lights were painfully bright. In that moment I realized, no wonder people are so confused, this place is so distracting!

Consciousness, perception, experiences, thoughts, feelings, sensations, and memories all competing for one's attention. Distracting indeed, but from what? Consciousness, perception, experience, thought, feeling, sensation, and memory do not reach it whatsoever, yet themselves are not outside of it.

To simply stop being distracted is the simplicity and ease of the way. Pay close attention!

How does one pay close attention? By paying no attention at all. Then everywhere is clear, every sight and sound the Buddha's Eye of Wisdom. Free in all directions, inherently complete.



Much love everyone! As always I welcome any insights or feedback.
Salem
saLA

[Jundo]

Hi Salem,

Master Dogen took this a bit further so that we don't get "lost in Emptiness," only knowing the wordless, silent, empty as if something separate from the words and full, busy world.

So, for example,

"These words are right. Living apart from the world and hold the mind aloof to it, not doing a single thing, is called practicing the way.

But we should not forget that one can be "apart from" the world right in the world, and that there is no place to be "apart." One can be "not doing a single thing" even while busy and doing 1000 things in the hustle bustle. So, he wrote in Bendowa ...

... Those who think that worldly tasks can hinder the Buddha Dharma only think there is no Buddha Dharma in worldly things; they do not know that are no "worldly things" "in the Buddha".

The Long Scroll also says ...

Not seeing a single thing is called seeing the way. Not knowing a single thing is called cultivating the way. Not practicing a single thing is called practicing the way.

One can "not see a single thing" right in every single thing, both the beautiful and ugly. Like Bodhidharma "not knowing" is truly "Knowing," and "not practicing (requiring no practice/truly nothing to do)" is the very reason that we practice so diligently, with nothing to do or attain even as we whole-heartedly practice .

If one seeks the place of no birth, that very seeking gives birth to no birth

The place of "no birth" is also precisely this world of birth and death to those with wise eyes to see. Though we are born, though we die, nothing is ever born or dies. The very act of dying is "no birth." Thus, Dogen writes in Shoji ...

Thus death is realized as "deathlessness". In birth there is only birth, in death there is only death. Thus, when birth comes realize birth. When death comes realize death. Do not avoid or desire either of them. This birth and death is itself the life of Awake Awareness. If you struggle to escape it you will lose the life of Awake Awareness. Also if you try to grasp it you will lose the life of the Awakened One and all you will have is the husk. Only when you don't crave for or despise birth and death will you enter Awake Awareness.

It is true that ...

Good and evil are without distinction, This alone is true suchness.

However, do not ignore Karma. There is good and there is evil. Our Precepts guide us to be good. Dogen writes in Shoaku-Makusa ...

We practise through good and wrong actions, causes and effects. This does not mean pushing causes and effects, or creating them. Causes and effects sometimes bring us to practice. This is because the Original Face of causes and effects can be clearly seen: it is "not-doing," it is unborn, it is impermanent, it is not obscuring, it is not falling, it is dropped through. Through studying it this way, the fact that "wrong actions" have always been "not-done" is realized. This realization penetrates through seeing right through the "not-doing" of "wrong actions" and eradicates them by decisively sitting through them .... It is not that wrong actions do not exist, but that there is only "not-doing." It is not that wrong actions do exist, but that there is only "not-doing."

Also ...

When speech is silenced, all movement stilled, every sight and —sound vanished THEN is the Buddha's work of deliverence truly going forward! Then, where will you seek the Buddha? You cannot place a head upon your head, or lips upon your lips; rather, you should just refrain from every kind of dualistic distinction. Hills are hills. Water is water. Monks are monks. Laymen are laymen. But these mountains, these rivers, the whole world itself, together with sun, moon and stars—not one of them exists outside your minds!

This is true. And yet, mountains exist, rivers exist, the whole world exists ... and each grain of sand of the mountain, drop of water of the river and whole world is overflowing with Buddha's work, as real as real can be. Dogen cautioned us (in his many words) that sights, sounds and well turned speech preach with Buddha's tongue. From Sansuikyo ...

If you doubt mountains’ walking, you do not know your own walking; it is not that you do not walk but that you do not know or understand your own walking. Since you do not know your own walking, you should fully know the green mountains’ walking. ... There are mountains hidden in treasures . There are mountains hidden in swamps. There are mountains hidden in the sky . There are mountains hidden in mountains. There are mountains hidden in hiddenness

Gassho, J
stlah
stlah

[WhiteLotus]

Hi Salem

Ah Jundo you spoil me! Though I am taking a break from studying new text, you give me much to look forward to. The Bendowa, Shoji, Shoaku-Makusa, and Sansuikyo all sound interesting and I don't know that I've read any of it yet!

Your insights are wonderful indeed. In my view emptiness is often taken wrong in Western contexts, which can tend towards "remaining at the zero point of the scale so to speak. In reality it just nullifies the clinging to delusion and illuminates inherent clarity. Based on what I have seen so far, you avoid this trap with your students by telling that Zazen doesn't have a "goal" as it were, and instead of trying to ignore thoughts and sensations, simply allow them to arise and fall on their own without attaching to them or rejecting them. Naturally any dust will settle to the bottom on its own.

I like how you addressed the nature of diligent practice. It is similar to my own view. The fact that practice isn't needed, there is nothing to perfect or cultivate, is the very nature of our freedom to fully enter practice without obstruction! Diligence isn't required, it just makes sense.

Dogen put that well. Words are so tricky in that they always somewhat fair to convey meaning. For example consciousness. There are many connotations and definitions, or theories and such. I think the use of awake awareness makes a lot of sense. Many assert that consciousness is all there is. However in my view the basis is a sort of awareness that reaches everywhere. Consciousness is a byproduct of brain activity which simulates experiences and observations. A projection or after thought. For some this may be hard to understand, as consciousness is much of what people think of in terms of awareness. However, there is a very subtle awareness beyond consciousness. When we turn our consciousness back towards the subconscious we can naturally awake our consciousness to this awareness. In this way it seems that zazen facilitates embodiment of this awake awareness.

Clinging the mind's consciousness to conceptual emptiness, eternity, or oneness, is no different from clinging to delusion. The same with clinging to notions of anything apart from buddha-nature, or clinging to notions of things being buddha-nature. Without clinging, "nothing to cling to" is realized. Without anything to cling, naturally buddha-nature is endlessly all things in ways clinging concepts completely fail to express. Only direct experience is illuminating. Though I could go a step further and assert that even the struggle isn't something apart from this fundamental illumination. That if anyone ever finds themselves struggling with birth and death, nothing is truly lost. If they look closely to the essence of even confusion or delusion, the buddha-nature is ever present and constantly illuminating. There is no escape from delusion, because delusion is no different from what enlightenment is. If it were, enlightenment wouldn't be complete enlightenment.

Excellent advice on Karma. It aligns well with the second case from Wumen's collection, the wild fox. Though a perfectly enlightened being doesn't fall into cause and effect, they're not blind to it. Which is a perfect expression of essence and function, absolute and relative, primary and secondary, and so on. I think a fundamental pivot is the difference between looking at liberation as freeing oneself from suffering, into liberation as a freedom to fully engage with life wholly. That isn't something that can be codified, as a lawyer I am sure you're all too aware of the endless law books dedicated to trying to codify right and wrong. Whole libraries dedicated to it.

In reality harming someone is right sometimes, and saving someone is equally right. For example there is an old Indian story. I haven't been able to track down the source or earliest mention, but it is a good story nonetheless you may have heard. It is about the monk and the scorpion. One day the monk was crossing over a bridge when he saw a scorpion had fallen into the stream below and was likely to drown. He ran down and scooped it up, then went to ferry it over to the shore. Before he got there the scorpion stung him, causing him to drop it back into the water. He again and again scooped it up, and got stung again and again.

Some renditions tell that he eventually got a leaf or branch and carried it over to the shore, others tell that the scorpion ended up drowning. Both are fair points. However all of them end with onlookers asking something like, "Why would you try to save it over and over even though it repaid you with sting after sting?"

The monk responded, "I was simply acting according to my nature, and the scorpion was simply acting according to theirs."

Awesome ending quote and points. It reminds me of the metaphor of mountains of delusion or ideations. As well as the statement, "Before enlightenment mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. At the moment of enlightenment, no mountains, no rivers. After enlightenment, mountains are mountains, and rivers are rivers." and this case:


Jōshū went together with the head monk to see the stone bridge. He asked the head monk, "Who built it?"
The head monk said, "[The craftsman] Riyo built it."
Jōshū said, "When he built it, where did he start working on it?"
The head monk could not answer.
Jōshū said, "They are always talking about the stone bridge, but if you ask them, they don't even know where to set their hands to it."

And more specifically, what Yuanwu recalls in his record Essentials of Mind:

An ancient master said, “Meeting a companion on the Way, spending a life together, the whole task of study is done.” Another master said, “If I pick up a single leaf and go into the city, I move the whole of the mountain.”


Much love Jundo and thank you for your input!
Salem
SatLah