Once true-nature is recognized, one can harmonize with one’s environment yet remain undefiled. This is to already be a Buddha. At this point there is no need to put forth effort and be diligent. Any action is superfluous. No need to bother with the slightest thought or word. Therefore, to become a Buddha is the easiest, most unobstructed task. Do it by yourself. Do not seek outside yourself for it.
Hsu Yun
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Tha hard part is "to recognize our true-nature", I guess :P
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't say that "to become a Buddha is the easiest, most unobstructed task", but hey, the guy lived it and he knew more about it than me :D
Hi Pablo,
ReplyDeleteI think simple would be a better word than easy. The task is simple but not necessarily easy. It’s like when I do my archery, the task is quite simple; hit the mark with the arrow, but to do so is another matter completely.
Sometimes being without word or action moves you out of harmony with your environment. How, then, can those be reconciled?
ReplyDelete...in reply to Erik.
ReplyDelete_/\_
Action without effort comes from our core being, when we respond naturally there is no effort to do so. Right action and/or right words are both effortless and appropriate when they come from our awakened consciousness.
ReplyDeleteThe quote from Hsu Yun clearly illustrates the Taoist aspect “To act without acting” a component of Zen that most modern Zen folks tend to misunderstand and/or ignore.
Hi Miles,
ReplyDeleteThat's the standard-issue 'intuitive' model idealism. I'm very familiar with that coming from Dogen Sangha.
Sorry, but I have to call bullshit on it as some sort of 'ultimate value' or 'supreme way'. It's only part of the story; and it's the smaller part, I reckon, where real people living in the real world are concerned.
Much of the considerable weight of modern and post modern Western culture (not to mention our whacked take on Buddhist and other Eastern culture) would have us be semi-conscious, spoon fed, consumer-growbags wallowing in our very own self-created blend of sucrose and shit (and thinking it clever!) It's really quite pervasive.
Substantially unyoking ourselves from them apples for the greater portion of our lives (i.e. off the zafu) will, in the great majority of cases, very likely involve all sorts of effort including some very deliberate and conscious efforts and observances... if we're really serious about actualising it anywhere other than in some remote mental sphere, that is.
Alternatively we might just wake up one day somewhat like Golden Balls Genpo thinking that everything 'intuitive' we do is okay 'cos we're enlightened and enlightened guys can put their penises anywhere because there's no teenie weenie rules like that for My Big Mind in My Big Universe... well, it's tempting, I admit...
The words of the wonderful dead master always make it sound easier, but, if we want to learn about what a buddha does about it, we should really consider taking up as our standard the profound failings of the only inconsistent-but-living-at-least asshole that we can really know directly.
Regards,
Harry.
I'm with Pablo. Once you have recognized your true-nature everything must be simple or easy. I'm not sure how easy could be to recognize it...
ReplyDeleteWell, actually, I don't know what or where is my true nature.
ReplyDeleteWhat’s the matter Harry, Somebody sit on your rose colored glasses? :-)
ReplyDeleteWhat makes you think that someone who witnessed the Nanking Massacre and nearly starved to death giving his own food to war refugees is some kind of Post Modern Idealist?
Do you honestly believe that wallowing in self indulgent Urban Angst, has anything to with waking up?
And, what in the Hell makes you think that anyone in the Holy Western Zen Empire (Including those Japanese $40,000 per funeral Roshi’s) knows anything about suffering or actualizing consciousness? Eido Shimano and Dennis Genpo Merzel are simply the direct product of the “spending years on the cushion” and “we gotta work on ourselves” pop culture bullshit that generates this egocentric “self-created blend of sucrose and shit.”
Until people wake up and recognize that each and every one of us personally responsible for this entire train wreck and stop their mental masturbating by “working on themselves” it’s just gonna’ keep on happening.
Hsu Yun is not talking about some fanciful lollygagging in the temple garden, thinking that if we just “work on our selves” that we will find some Western Paradise. He’s talking about walking knee deep in dead burnt bodies and industrial sewage without getting yourself all wrapped up in how it personally offends you and how you really need to “work on yourself”.
With love,
Miles
Hi Miles,
ReplyDeleteWhat Hsu Yun did is sort of besides the fundamental point. Why not let's talk about stuff we've done ourselves and that we can be sure of?
I quite agree on the "we gotta work on ourselves" pop crap. But to let that craziness sully genuine effort to the extent that we reject conscious effort is also an extreme; and it is also contrary to some core tenants of Buddhism (whatever to hell that is) such as Bodhichitta, the mind or will towards realisation, or 'the thought of enlightenment' as its been used. I find that the ox responds to both the stick and the carrot and that both are very necessary. There's also a thing called the Precepts that, really, are not intended as magic words but as indications of the conduct of buddha ancestors... if we can't actualise them naturally then we should follow them like stupid, brainless sheep (if we are really concerned for our conduct and our responsibilities), because we won't always be on Enlightenment Cloud 9 and be manifesting an intuitive non-buddha.
Until people wake up and recognize that each and every one of us personally responsible for this entire train wreck and stop their mental masturbating by “working on themselves” it’s just gonna’ keep on happening.
I think replacing unconscious or semi conscious apathy with this sort of fatalism and guilt/'responsibility' is not wise and is another strange idealism (a potentially very negative one that this fallen Catholic recognises well). We can only ever be responsible for what we are doing right now. The rest of the 'responsible self' is imagined (inc. the past actor). If this wasn't the case then we'd be stuck in our narratives such as 'responsibility' or 'I am guilty' or 'I am an enlightened Master so you must suck on my knob' or whatever. On the other hand; we each have diverse, 'historic' conditions that we should recognise and know well and that inform how we act and react... it would be another mistake to deny that (there's that pesky Wild Fox koan again).
Regards, and thanks for the love!
Harry.
Hi Harry,
ReplyDeleteI wish you didn’t live so far away, I’m sure we could really work up a real froth over beer and peanuts.
I think we agree on the concept of conscious effort but what we are belaboring is what “conscious effort” is. Living by the precepts is a slam dunk for people who are already living by the precepts (even before they ever even hear of them). It’s only difficult for those who want to maintain their deluded lives while they spend 30 years “working on themselves.”
I think the fundamental point is that we must “actualize” our awakening naturally because to do otherwise only leads to rules and the self righteous rationalizations of why it’s okay to break the rules because we are somehow above them. I don’t know if you have noticed but your “stupid brainless sheep” are spending their spare time fucking in the dokusan room. The stupid brainless sheep approach has never worked and it never will.
Ben Franklin’s “Rules are for Fools” is probably one of the most misunderstood statements of all time. It’s not that anyone is above the rules, it’s that because of egocentric jackasses that we have to live by all these painfully obvious rules. If people would only get out of “themselves” they would find this really is not about them and the rules would be superfluous.
As far as your interpreting waking up to reality as some sort of “fatalism and guilt/'responsibility” (I think the Buddha called it suffering.) I could have just as easily said:
Until people wake up and recognize that each and every one of us personally responsible for the worlds beauty, love, happiness and fulfillment and stop their mental masturbating by “working on themselves” it’s just gonna’ keep on happening.
Because it’s exactly the same thing, the world is the world whether we want to take credit for making it beautiful, or deny our implicit responsibility for the catastrophe, is simply our picking and choosing as a way of stroking our egos. Everyone wants to take credit but nobody wants to take the blame.
I totally agree with you when you say “We can only ever be responsible for what we are doing right now.” (which is all there ever is) but the key word here is “we.” As long as people only work on their egocentric (I, my, me) selves they are simply perpetuating the myth. There is no separation between me and the whole beautiful train wreck and until I “get” this I’m only pissing in the wind.
Some dude name Dogen put it this way, "To study the Buddha Way is to study the self, to study the self is to forget the self, and to forget the self is to be enlightened by the ten thousand things." And therefore, to be enlightened by the ten thousand things is to recognize the unity of the self and the ten thousand things and live up to it.
Wait! I think I hear Michael ringing the bell!
Gassho,
And thanks for holding up the other end of the wires,
Miles
The stupid brainless sheep approach has never worked and it never will."
ReplyDeleteHi Miles,
Good stuff, but you're tending to swing to extremes IMO.
I think if we take a look at human history we will see that there is a pressing need for both individual freedom (the 'freedom' to be deluded thinking that we are being free, mostly!) AND rules and checks and balances antecedent to what we think of ourselves, and/or what we don't think of ourselves. It's not a question of our own objective or subjective viewpoints (ego or no-self) but of what we actually tend to do as a species if left to our own devices. That should be the standard of our rules; not philosophical/religious bullshit which is repeatedly shown to fail in the face of our messy and inconsistent humanity.
If there was no rule tomorrow in either of our countries (but more in yours) then it probably wouldn't be long until there was widespread violence and brutal domination and suppression as there was in feudal Japan. Peace, stability, and what we generally call freedom, are always hard won. There are always martyrs and casualties.
If people would only get out of “themselves” they would find this really is not about them and the rules would be superfluous.
I think this is a very simple way to look at it. I think there have been a lot of people who have realised what you have indicated but who have failed to bring it off their zafu and into the rest of their lives due to a lack of direction, a lack of guidance, a lack of teaching, a lack of checks and balances, a lack of rules. I think the zafu bit is the easy bit, as I said. Bringing into everyday areas such as human sexuality, the powerful drives that underpin our whole being, is the real work both on and off the zafu. Master Dogen was big on the student/teacher relationship for this reason (and other reasons) I think; he was about realising it where it happens, the Genjo-Koan in the midst of everyday tea and meals. An enlightened zafu is only really of any use to one ass at a time!
I don't believe in the ego, it is a myth, so it's not really possible for me to talk realistically in those terms (as if it were a 'thing' or an organ of the body or something). When we stop the activity that you are implying an 'ego' from then the mistaken perception that there is something/someone egoic there ceases. We don't cease to exist however, there is a person there practicing, an actor, 'someone holding up the head of a buddha' as Dogen put it, someone who is being realised and who is further 'stepping over the head of buddha'.
I don't think masturbation, mental or otherwise, is such a very bad thing really, Father (are you sure you aren't working undercover for Rome!?) All things in moderation of course.
Our thinking minds are wonderful gifts despite how we tend to misuse and abuse them. Our imaginations have contributed to some really great, real things. We should use the gifts well if we want to have good life and help others do the same........
...........As long as people only work on their egocentric (I, my, me) selves they are simply perpetuating the myth. There is no separation between me and the whole beautiful train wreck and until I “get” this I’m only pissing in the wind.
ReplyDeleteThe 'you', the real actor/person, who 'gets it' is not remote, nor adverse, nor other to, the person who makes the mistaken impression 'I,my,me' just as he is not separate to the whole train wreck... of course, the stuff we use to make a buddha in dropping off buddha, the 10,000 things, is just the stuff we otherwise use to make the mistaken appearance of self. 'Being enlightened by the ten thousand things' is to accept and use things as they are; not as an 'ego', not as a lack of 'ego', not as a 'mess', not as 'everything', 'the buddha', 'enlightenment', 'a mess' or anything that is opposed to or other than some other thing.
"...but the key word here is “we.” As long as people only work on their egocentric (I, my, me) selves they are simply perpetuating the myth. There is no separation between me and the whole beautiful train wreck and until I “get” this I’m only pissing in the wind."
Master Dogen never denied the real existence of the 10,000 things. He didn't spout the usual philosophically redundant notion of emptiness as some sort of nothingness or bland blob or stagnant, dead 'one-ness' remote from, or other to, real things. His teaching is quite remarkable for this. The 'we' is the 10,000 things used correctly, to make a buddha, to realise the 10,000 things, to have all selves realise them selves together.
A big part of the problem of 'enlightened' skullduggery, I'm fairly sure, is that these people who are so concerned with throwing away themselves, their 'ego', their Small Mind or whatever, due to some unfortunate misinterpretations of Buddhist philosophy and some very real human traits, tend to throw away the practicing buddha as well... the baby goes out with the bath water and, in the remaining vacant 'emptiness', everything and anything goes!... And I think some of them can't even use that much as an excuse.
Regards,
Harry.
Good stuff Harry, but I think maybe you have our positions confused. Me thinks you’re the one working undercover for The Church; I’m more of a Pelagian.
ReplyDeleteBut alas poor Pelagius, crushed by a stampede of sheep.
Sola scriptura deficit...Om mani padme hum
Good old Palagius! He sure had his moments:
ReplyDelete…any good of which human nature is capable has to be revealed, since what is shown to be practicable must be put into practice.
Those who are unwilling to correct their own way of life appear to want to correct nature itself instead.
And anyone who pissed off St. Augustine MUST have been onto something (although, I do have a soft spot for crusty old Augustine: he's the patron saint of brewers).
...Palagius believed in divine grace through human 'free will': but had he freed his will in practice or was it the 'free will' of human wants and desires that hold the world tight?
It's pretty fundamental to our Western idealism (stemming as it does from the Greeks)... but how free is this 'free will'? How 'free' is the person driven 'freely' this way and that by wants and desires and personal beliefs and aversions?
I'd say he took a dim view of wanking... it does make one blind after all.
;-))
Regards,
Harry.