And this worldly life is not but diversion and amusement. And indeed, the home of the Hereafter - that is the [eternal] life, if only they knew.

Sudden Teaching in Chan or Zen

The famous student of the Sixth Patriarch, Huineng, Shenhui carried forth the essence of the Sudden Enlightenment teaching devoid of practices or study. This is the Chan lineage I received in China from Chan master Yen Wai Shih, who gave me instructions to teach this tradition after certifying it’s correct transmission to me, in 1978 in China.

Shen-hui:

“Do not [practice] mindfulness of the Buddha, do not grasp the mind, do not view the mind, do not measure the mind, do not meditate, do not contemplate, and do not disrupt (interfere) [the mind]. Just let it flow. Do not make it go and do not make it stay. Alone in a pure and ultimate location (i.e., the absolute), the mind will be naturally bright and pure.”

“Shen-hui summarized the gradual approach of the northern school in his famous four verses, which clarified the position of this school regarding meditation practice. These verses say that one is to 1) enter into samâdhi by concentrating one’s mind, 2) view tranquility by settling one’s mind, 3) illuminate outwardly by arousing one’s mind, and 4) verify inwardly by controlling one’s mind. It is this position that Shen-hui rejected. He maintained that such meditation practice was for low-level people, and argued that no Patriarch from Bodhidharma ever attained enlightenment in this manner. According to Shen-hui’s position as long as one tries by any form, such as the method of concentrating, settling, arousing, and controlling, one is still attached to the very fact that one is trying.”

“For Shen-hui the highest teaching is a sudden enlightenment where one unintentionally becomes aware of his or her Buddha nature, which is originally inherent in the person. This awareness is obtained by giving up all the practices and just seeing into one’s true nature. For the deluded mind an obstacle to enlightenment is the attachment to the attempt to get rid of that delusion. Attachment takes place as soon as one attempts to overcome it. Using the metaphor of polishing (practice) a mirror (Buddha nature), the gradual approach tried to polish the mirror in order to make it clean. According to the sudden approach, however, since the mirror is originally clean as it is, the act of polishing it only makes it dirtier. Both the gradual and the sudden schools accepted the notion of the Buddha nature.8 According to the northern gradual school, as defined by Shen-hui, the Buddha nature can be understood as something like a possibility or a seed of becoming a Buddha. One attains enlightenment by making this possibility a reality. Just as a seed grows, so a person can become enlightened through practices of concentration. On the other hand, according to the southern sudden school, the Buddha nature is enlightenment itself. All one needs for enlightenment is simply to become aware of the Buddha nature one already is. Any attempt to become enlightened is seen as a deluded struggle. Rather one has to cast away all attempts to realize Buddha nature. At the very moment of casting away everything and thereby seeing into one’s real nature, one is enlightened--the Buddha nature manifests or reveals itself suddenly.”

“While Shen-hui does not provide explicit practical aids for practice, on careful reading of his works, we find an indication of a form of practice. What Shen-hui suggests is that we just become aware of whatever occurs in our minds. For example, “when afflicted mind arise, become aware of it,” because this “awareness (rigpa) is the original nature of non-abiding-mind.”



“....it rejects practice as preventing one from seeing into his or her true nature. For the southern school we just become aware of our true nature without any intentional attempt or method of practice. If we faithfully follow the southern school position, we must realize that if we “try” to become aware of our true nature (it seems one has to try at some point), this very attempt becomes the practice that Shen-hui rejects as preventing us from actually seeing our true nature. The southern school tells us that such attempts will not work. Because we must begin somewhere, we confront the problem of the sudden teaching. One of the important concepts of the southern school is wu-nien or no-thought, which is used to convey the idea of true thought or thought without attachment. As the main doctrine of the Platform Sutra, no-thought is “to be unstained in all environments.” The text further explains: “The Dharma of no-thought means: even though you see all things, you do not attach to them, but, always keeping your own nature pure, cause the six thieves to exit through the six gates. Even though you are in the midst of the six dusts, you do not stand apart from them, yet are not stained by them, and are free to come and go.” No-thought is, therefore, neither a human construct nor an intentional method like concentration for the attainment of enlightenment, rather it is natural, free, unbounded (beyond) thought. The text continues by saying that “being free and having achieved release is known as the practice of no-thought”; however, if you “cause your thought to be cut off, you will be bound in the Dharma,” which points to the fact that intentional methods prevent a person from seeing his or her true nature. Following the Platform Sutra, Shen-hui claims that “Tathatâ is the substance (or essence) of no-thought.... If there is someone who sees into no-thought, although he is accompanied by seeing, hearing, feeling, and knowing, [his thought is] always empty and tranquil.” Thus, no-thought is un-intentional and non-purposive. It is identical with the Buddha nature as the function of Tathatâ, because Tathatâ is its substance. Therefore, if one becomes aware of no-thought, one’s mind becomes empty and, thus, enlightened. For Shen-hui, in the experience of no-thought, “śîla, samâdhi, and prajñâ simultaneously become identical, ten thousand practices are endowed with, and one’s knowledge becomes the same as knowledge of Tathâgata....” Therefore, in becoming aware of one’s true nature--“being free and having achieved release,” all the practice that is needed--“the practice of no-thought” is contained in the moment. In this enlightened experience, there is no difference among śîla, samâdhi, and prajñâ. For Shen-hui this practice is direct, immediate, and sudden, taking place spontaneously. Thus, the enlightened experience, which is clearly different from the gradual practice used as a means for enlightenment, is not a means. The experience simply happens--sudden practice.”

JP

TEDDYBEDDY: jestli mas ten soubor toho textu nekde hod mi ho do posty pls

FORAMINIFERA: to je bdela pritomnost a vsimavost tady a ted kazdy den - sati, satipathana, vipassana.

If we commit ourselves to staying right where we are, then our experience becomes very vivid. Things become very clear when there is nowhere to escape.
~ Pema Chodron

KOCOURMIKES: who says this??

The Natural State of Nirvana

The Two Ultimate Truths

First Truth:

"Our permanent condition is always Nirvana"

Second Truth:

"Whatever seems to contradict or to refute the 'First Truth', is just a fictional thought"

The beauty of this path is that just when you thought that it couldn't get any better; it does!

I am a space from which all things simply come and go, finding nothing to resist them.

Or I am all things that come and go.

Diamond Sutra:
SECTION XXV. THE ILLUSION OF EGO
"Subhuti, what do you think? Let no one say the Tathagata cherishes the idea: I must liberate all living beings. Allow no such thought, Subhuti. Wherefore? Because in reality there are no living beings to be liberated by the Tathagata. If there were living beings for the Tathagata to liberate, He would partake in the idea of selfhood, personality entity, and separate individuality."
Also from the Diamond Sutra:
"Yet when vast, uncountable, immeasurable numbers of beings have thus been liberated, verily no being has been liberated. Why is this, Subhuti? It is because no Bodhisattva who is a real Bodhisattva cherishes the idea of an ego-entity, a personality, a being, or a separated individuality."
"A Bodhisattva should develop a mind which alights upon nothing whatsoever..."
"The mind should be kept independent of any thoughts which arise within it." (the principle of khorde rushen)

repasta

critical

Refuting Awareness

In Prasangika emptiness teachings, any form of personal or impersonal free-standing “awareness” is refuted. This means that not only is the object of perception being refuted as not existing as an independently existing “thing” itself, but the subject as an awareness that perceives an object, is equally refuted and rejected. They say in direct cognitive experience you just can’t find this mysterious “awareness”.

In any moment of consciousness what is known is the texture of that cognitive moment. You can’t find a separate awareness that is knowing that separate texture. It’s imaginary and would be dualistic. This means that awareness is inseparable from the texture of the cognitive moment of consciousness.

So the idea that your true nature is an awareness apart from experiences is an illusory fiction. There are no parts in cognitive experience.

However when the texture of an experience as a moment of consciousness arises, that texture can’t be found either. It has no duration. You can’t separate the form from its empty awareness. The form IS empty awareness, and empty awareness is always embodied or enformed. You can’t separate the emptiness from its luminosity.

Even when all coarse textures are absent, there exists the texture of the primal wisdom that can’t be separated from awareness. There is no ethereal pure awareness that exists apart and removed as being merely a empty knower of experiences. Rather all experiences are ungraspable “awareness/texture” appearing as moments of consciousness, not appearing to an imagined separate perceiver or observer. The “me” is a mere texture, not an observing entity.

This view also eliminates all notions of there being a “Ground of Being” that expresses its potentials yet remains untouched; instead the Ground of Being is what experience is. It’s fully invested with no separate part resting apart in total stillness, just watching.

There is also no Awareness that is guiding the unfolding of conscious experiences. Every moment of consciousness IS what Awareness is.

Dzogchen is Radical

In Dzogchen you are energetically projecting and conceptually constructing your thoughts, your mind, sense of self, emotions, sensory perceptions, your body, your home , your world and all people appearing in it. You aren’t perceiving “through” a body’s sensory systems, you are merely projecting perceptions as if in a dream.

This world is the same as the bardo in that both are your own mental constructions and projections. There are no objectively existing phenomena as people, objects or bodies in Dzogchen. The creative power is called “Samantabhadra”, which is who you actually are at ALL times. It’s very similar to the single, all creating “god” of various theological traditions, except in this case you are the all-creating god of your universe that appears “objective” and pre-existing.

In most cases you are creating and projecting a “self-consciousness” that believes it’s existing in a world and body that objectively exist in a real and stable pre-existing space/time universe. In this case your creative power is relegated to being a seeming subconscious or “other” higher power that remains “backstage” while projecting the stage, the stage set, the actors, the roles, the scripts, the audience and the theater.

Our current experience is being an “actor” on the stage dramatizing a role according to a fixed script, while the producer/director remains unknown backstage.

You leave clues for yourself from time to time called moments of synchronicity or unexplainable coincidences that occur. This is when a single subjective experience seems to match up with some “objective” experience that leaves a magical sense of wonder. It’s almost seen that the projector of the subjective experience is the same projector of the seeming “objective” event. Religious people would usually say “god” arranged the “coincidence”; how true, how true. Except they see their “god” as being someone “other” than themselves.

Dzogchen is bringing the subconscious “higher power” into full consciousness. At that point, the secondary “self-consciousness” ceases being projected as the current identity.

In Sufism, those great Sufis who realized this, declare “I am Allah (god)”. And any who actualize this, seem to have the powers like one who is lucid dreaming in their own dream, but in the waking state.

For materialists or quasi-materialists; this view is too radical, it puts you in the driver’s seat of the car that you are projecting as well as the roads you are driving upon and the imaginary pedestrians you run over.

The secondary, egoic-self loves this story, because it believes it can now project whatever it selfishly wishes; EXCEPT that secondary consciousness as “me” is itself a mere inanimate projection being projected by who you truly are; whose wishes are always being fully expressed and fulfilled in every moment of consciousness, as that moment of consciousness, however the “real you” projects it.

Our seeming shared co-existence, is due to the fact that we all share a common Basis (zhi) as a single Dharmakaya; the real author, director and producer of the total play that’s always perfect, perfectly synchronized, and perfectly performed.

The theater, the stage, the actors and the stage props that make up the play are called “Thigle Chenpo”, the Great Hyper-Sphere. The Author remains like an empty crystal sphere in which the Thigle Chenpo appears, as a reflection appears in crystal clear sphere, without effecting the sphere.

Karma Lingpa revealed this text as a re-discovered text of Padmasambhava...

Regarding rigpa:

“Some call it "the nature of the mind" or "mind itself."

Some Hindus call it by the name Atman or "the Self."

The Sravaka Buddhists call it the doctrine of Anatman or "the absence of a self."

The followers of the “Mind Only School” call it by the name Chitta or "the Mind."

Some call it the Prajnaparamita or "the Perfection of Wisdom."

Some call it the name Tathagata-garbha or "the embryo of Buddhahood."

Some call it by the name Mahamudra or "the Great Symbol."

Some call it by the name "the Unique Sphere."

Some call it by the name Dharmadhatu or "the dimension of Reality."

Some call it by the name Alaya or "the basis of everything."

And some simply call it by the name "ordinary awareness."

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

In earliest Dzogchen texts, especially in the Semde tantras, the term for rigpa is also “Dagnyid Chenpo” or “Great Self”. Who or what is the “Great Self”? It is Samantabhadra, the All-Good One. It’s who we actually are.

Dagnyid Chenpo is also “Kunje Gyalpo” the “All Creating Monarch”. Again, we are Kunje Gyalpo. We create all phenomena and universes through conceptually constructing energetic thought formations of our own light and imbuing them with our own conceived meanings.

“Even though the entire external inanimate universe appears to you, it is but a manifestation of mind.”

“Even though all of the sentient beings of the six realms appear to you they are but a manifestation of mind.”

“This self-originated primordial awareness (rigpa) has not been created by anything--amazing!”

“It does not experience birth nor does there exist a cause for its death--amazing!”

“Although it has wandered throughout Samsara, it has come to no harm--amazing!”

“Even though it has seen Buddhahood itself, it has not come to any benefit from this--amazing!”

“Even though it exists in everyone everywhere, yet it has gone unrecognized--amazing!”

“Nonetheless you hope to attain some other fruit than this elsewhere--amazing!”

“Even though it exists within yourself (and nowhere else), yet you seek for it elsewhere--amazing!”

“Since your own immediate awareness is just this,
how can you say that you do not know anything with regard to it?”

Excepts from:

Rig-pa ngo-sprod gcer mthong rang-grol, belonging to the Zab-chos zhi-khro dgongs-pa rang-grol cycle of Rigdzin Karma Lingpa, “Self Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness” translated by John Reynolds and Namkhai Norbu.