Seeing your true nature ?

[John Cloud]

Hi dear teacher Jundo and other teachers and friends .

When i read bodhidharma teaching he emphasize on seeing your true nature . Whatever you practice is go in vain Unless you see your nature .

He said :
And the mind is the Buddha. And the Buddha is the path. And the path is Zen. But the word Zen is one that remains a puzzle to both mortals and sages. Seeing your nature is Zen. Unless you see your nature, it’s not Zen .

And he said about our true nature :
Your real body is basically pure. It can’t be corrupted. Your real body has no sensation, no hunger or thirst’, no warmth or cold, no sickness, no love or attachment, no pleasure or pain, no good or bad, no shortness or length, no weakness or strength. Actually, there’s nothing here. It’s only because you cling to this material body that things like hunger and thirst, warmth and cold, sickness appear Once you stop clinging and let things be, you’ll- be free, even of birth and death .


My question :
-Do i iust aware that i have the true nature and that is all ?
-Or do i need to aware that i have true nature all the time . Like remind my self every day that i have true nature ?
-Or just when i practice zazen ?

Gassho

[Heion]

In my opinion, things like 'true nature' can not be fully understood in terms of thinking and philosophy. The must be felt, even if very hazily at first. I am not very familiar with the bodhidharma, but you should just let your true nature be your true nature. Just leave things as they are without adding judgements. Things just are. The more and more you sit zazen, the more and more this attitude will seep into your life. It is a very gradual process, but soon your whole life becomes like sitting (in a way).

So, I will (tentatively) say that you should not grasp onto this true nature and instead let it just exist. Let everything just be where it is, without adding or taking away. Letting sad times be sad, times of anger be times of anger (of course, still try to avoid anger, but accept it). It just is. Then, you will have your true nature.

Gassho and welcome,
Heion

[John Cloud]

Very good .
Thank you very much Heion

Gassho

[Nameless]

Heion said it well. The body Bodhidharma is talking about is probably the Dharmakaya, but like many concepts in Zen we can't "get it," by just contemplating it. Many concepts just kinda roll around in the conditioned mind, sometimes bringing insights that manifest in behavior. Sometimes they just cause confusion. The Dharma is like the memoir of zazen. Studying it is important, like looking at a trail map when hiking. But some of the squiggles on the map only make sense when actually walking the trail. Concepts like the Mind and Buddha-nature are like that.

Can only suggest what I suggest to myself; when sitting.. sit. Let thoughts come and go without coming or going. Sometimes they quiet, sometimes they don't, sometimes there's no "you" there to think anymore. Only awareness. I'm no teacher though, this is just the experiences had along the way. Thank you for the question.

Gassho, Foolish John

[John Cloud]

Thank you very much John

Gassho

[Jishin]

My question :
-Do i iust aware that i have the true nature and that is all ?
-Or do i need to aware that i have true nature all the time . Like remind my self every day that i have true nature ?
-Or just when i practice zazen ?

Gassho

I don't know. My favorite tv show is on. See you later. :-)

Gassho, Jishin

[Rich]

Just smile and be with the emptiness.



Kind regards. /\

[Jundo]

Hi dear teacher Jundo and other teachers and friends .

When i read bodhidharma teaching he emphasize on seeing your true nature . Whatever you practice is go in vain Unless you see your nature .

He said :
And the mind is the Buddha. And the Buddha is the path. And the path is Zen. But the word Zen is one that remains a puzzle to both mortals and sages. Seeing your nature is Zen. Unless you see your nature, it’s not Zen .

And he said about our true nature :
Your real body is basically pure. It can’t be corrupted. Your real body has no sensation, no hunger or thirst’, no warmth or cold, no sickness, no love or attachment, no pleasure or pain, no good or bad, no shortness or length, no weakness or strength. Actually, there’s nothing here. It’s only because you cling to this material body that things like hunger and thirst, warmth and cold, sickness appear Once you stop clinging and let things be, you’ll- be free, even of birth and death .


My question :
-Do i iust aware that i have the true nature and that is all ?
-Or do i need to aware that i have true nature all the time . Like remind my self every day that i have true nature ?
-Or just when i practice zazen ?

Gassho

Hi John,

All we do (and non-do) around this place, and in any Zen Sangha, is about "seeing the nature" ... seeing what cannot be seen, of course (any more than your eyes see your eyes when looking out) ... and seeing what is always seen in all that the eye sees as well ... seeing a Beauty and Light in both the beautiful and the ugly, dark & rainy or sunny & bright scenery.

Most folks may go through life without truly seeing in such way.

Even after years of practicing Zazen, sometimes one may see more clearly, some days less so ... some days the scenery may change ... yet it is always present. It is much as the sun is always shining and lighting all, even on cloudy days when unseen or when their are clear skies, even at night when all seems darkest. The Eye is always present, seen or unseen, asleep or awake. Buddha Nature is so, seen or unseen, lighting all the changing scenery night and day.

But one does not merely philosophize about it, one practices and "realizes" (meaning, to recognize) and "realizes" (meaning, to make real in living life) so. Otherwise, it is like a fish philosophizing about swimming and water, asking "where does the sea end and I begin?" for example. The fish may sometimes think about swimming and the sea ... but maybe just more important to swim swim swim, thus realizing the swimming-fish-sea. Like Nameless John said, one does not just look at the map, but must walk the mountain trail ... all to realize that walking-mountain-man are one.

The lines you quote from Bodhidharma, from the "Bloodstream Sutra" are probably "apocraphyal" (meaning that Bodhidharma himself did not really write them, and the author is someone centuries later, probably from something known as the Oxhead School. No matter, it is good stuff. The only writing in the collection that scholars now think has an actual chance of being the words of Bodhidharma is the so-called "Outline of Practice", better known as the "Two Entrances and Four Practices").

Next, just one more word of caution about the danger of "reifying" (another big vocabulary word today!). Throughout the history of Zen and Mahayana Buddhism, there were folks who tended to talk about stuff like "True Nature" "Original Mind" "Dharmakhaya" "the Unborn" "Big B Buddha" "Buddha nature" (those words are fairly interchangeable, by the way) as if it was a "thing" just an "object out there somewhere". That is to "reify".

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reify

But other Zen Teachers (sometimes the very same Zen teacher ... see the Koan below) will warn that to think of a "thing" can be misleading. Same with Emptiness (we are often reminded that "even Emptiness is empty!"), meaning that it is not some "thing out there" ... reminding us rather that it is both in and out, beyond inside or outside, and all things, nothing, this thing, you thing, and whatever is the next thing. I sometimes refer to it as the Dance of Wholeness in which dancer-dance-dancefloor-dancing are one ... not some frozen thing, but a living dance always leading to the next step. We encounter this Thing-Not Thing when we stop measuring and judging the world as this and that, good things and bad, starts and finishes, me and not me etc ... and simply swim-hike-dance-Just Sit. Zazen is how we realize such.

Anyway, I hope that helps. Have a good dance-swim-hike-sit!

Gassho, Jundo

Master Baso [Mazu] knew that Taibai was doing solitary sitting in the mountains, so he sent an attendant to examine him. The attendant asked Taibai, “What did you realize at Baso’s before you came to the mountain?” Taibai replied, “Once I asked Baso, ‘What is Buddha?’ He answered, ‘Mind is Buddha.’ The instant I heard those words I attained deep realization. After that, I came to the mountain.”
The attendant said, “Recently Baso’s teaching has changed.”
“In what way?” asked Taibai.
“Nowadays Master Baso says, ‘No mind, no Buddha.’”
Taibai said, “The great master Baso perplexes many Zen students. He may say ‘No mind, no Buddha’ if he wishes to, but for me it will be, ‘Mind is Buddha’ until the end of the world.”
The attendant returned and reported this to Baso, who commented, “The plum has ripened.”

...

A monk asked Mazu [Baso], “Master, why do you say that Mind is Buddha?”
Mazu said, “To stop babies from crying.”
The monk asid, “What do you say when they stop crying?”
Mazu said, “No mind, no Buddha.”
The monk asked, "Without using either of these teachings, how would you instruct someone?"
Mazu said, "I would say to him that it's not a thing."
The monk asked, "If suddenly someone who was in the midst of it came to you, then what would you do?"
Mazu said, "I would teach him to experience the great way."

[John Cloud]

Very great
Thank you very much dear teacher Jundo

Deep bow

[Taigu]

Dear John Cloud( I just love this name)

Shift a letter, please, seeing is being true nature. In there, anything to see?

Gassho

T.

[Taigu]

This is the ultimate meaning of killing Buddha, no witness needed
This is your face before your parents 's birth
A scoop of sea water
Eyeballs into eyeballs
And yet don' even say this
When it is made real
Two bulls enter the stream
To vanish


Gassho


T.

[Mp]

But one does not merely philosophize about it, one practices and "realizes" (meaning, to recognize) and "realizes" (meaning, to make real in living life) so.

Thank you Jundo, yes! =)

Gassho
Shingen

[Jundo]

This is the ultimate meaning of killing Buddha, no witness needed
This is your face before your parents 's birth
A scoop of sea water
Eyeballs into eyeballs
And yet don' even say this
When it is made real
Two bulls enter the stream
To vanish


Gassho


T.

This is the ultimate meaning of enlivening Buddha, no witness needed
This is your parents' face after your birth
And yet don't even say this
When it is made real
Two clay bulls emerge from the stream
To reappear
They splash seawater
Right in our eyeballs



Gassho, Jundo

[Taigu]

That's it, Bro.

Gassho

T.

[Dokan]

GASSHO!

Dokan

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