If you try to figure it out, if you try to look for it, you have already missed it, for you have presupposed incompleteness, you have assumed the presence of lack.
Where is the lack? In what way are you incomplete?
It is the mind that tells you you need something else, the mind that ‘says this is not enough’.
There is no need to believe the mind and the stories (lies) it spews forth: it is already here, ‘LACKING NOTHING AT ALL’, and you are it.
The following is an excerpt from the book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki:
If you want to obtain perfect calmness in your zazen, you should not be bothered by the various images you find in your mind. Let them come, and let them go. Then they will be under control. But this policy is not so easy. It sounds easy, but it requires some special effort. How to make this kind of effort is the secret of practice.
Suppose you are sitting under some extraordinary circumstances. If you try to calm your mind you will be unable to sit, and if you try not to be disturbed, your effort will not be the right effort. The only effort that will help you is to count your breathing, or to concentrate on your inhaling and exhaling. We say concentration, but to concentrate your mind on something is not the true purpose of Zen. The true purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. This is to put everything under control in its widest sense.
The true purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes.
Zen practice is to open up our small mind. So concentrating is just an aid to help you realise ‘big mind’, or the mind that is everything.
If you want to discover the true meaning of Zen in your everyday life, you have to understand the meaning of keeping your mind on your breathing and your body in the right posture in zazen.
You should follow the rules of practice and your study should become more subtle and careful. Only in this way can you experience the vital freedom of Zen.
The following are excepts I’ve compiled from the Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma (the founder of Zen Buddhism) as translated by Red Pine. What do you think?
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The way is basically perfect. It doesn’t require perfecting.
The way has no form or sound. It’s subtle and hard to perceive.
It’s like when you drink water: you know how hot or cold it is but you can’t tell others.
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The ultimate Truth is beyond words.
Doctrines are words. They are not the Way.
The Way is wordless.
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If you see your nature, you don’t need to read sutras or invoke Buddhas.
Erudition and Knowledge are not only useless but also cloud your awareness.
Doctrines are only for pointing to the mind. Once you see your mind, why pay attention to doctrines?
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People, though, are deluded. They’re unaware that their own mind is the Buddha. Otherwise they wouldn’t look for a Buddha outside the mind.
Buddhas don’t ferry Buddhas to the shore of liberation. If you use your mind to look for a Buddha, you won’t see the Buddha.
As long as you seek Buddhas outwards, you’ll never see that your own Heart is the Buddha.
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To find a Buddha, you have to see your nature. Whoever sees his nature is a Buddha.
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If you don’t see your nature and run outwards to seek for external objects, you’ll never find a buddha.
The truth is there’s nothing to find.
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If you attain anything at all, it’s conditional.
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Defilement and attachment, subject and object don’t exist.
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All phenomena are empty. They contain nothing worth desiring.
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A buddha is free of karma, free of cause and effect.
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To attain enlightenment you have to see your nature.
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It has never lived or died, appeared or disappeared, increased or decreased. It’s not pure or impure, good or evil, past or future. It’s not true or false. It’s not male or female. It doesn’t appear as a monk or a layman, an elder or a novice, a sage or a fool, a buddha or a mortal. It strives for no realisation and suffers no karma. It has no strength or form. It’s like space. You can’t possess it and you can’t lose it. Its movements can’t be blocked by mountains, rivers, or rock walls….No karma can restrain this real body. But this mind is subtle and hard to see. It’s not the same as the sensual mind.
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Everything that has a form is an illusion.
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Those who hold onto appearances are devils. They fall from the Path.
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All appearances are illusions.
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That which is free of all form is the Buddha.
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Wherever you find delight, you find bondage.
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I only talk about seeing your nature. I don’t talk about creating karma.
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The buddha is your real body, your original mind. This mind has no form or characteristics, no cause or effect, no tendons or bones.
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Detachment is enlightenment because it negates appearances.
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The appearance of appearance as no appearance can’t be seen visually, but can only be known by means of wisdom.
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All practices are impermanent.
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The sutras say, “Go beyond language. Go beyond thought.”
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Basically, seeing, hearing, and knowing are completely empty.
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Your anger, joy, or pain is like that of puppet.
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Trying to find a Buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space. Space has a name but no form.
It’s not something you can pick up or put down. And you certainly can’t grab it.
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Whoever realizes that the six senses aren’t real, that the five aggregates are fictions, that no such things can be located anywhere in the body, understands the language of buddhas.
Here are some more verses from the Kunjed Gyalpo (The Supreme Source), one of the most important texts in Tibetan Buddhism andDzogchen. These words point the reader directly towards Enlightenment. See my earlier posts on the Kunjed Gyalpo hereand here.
In the except below the first section initially directs us to listen to these teachings and realise the inherent liberation that is already present ‘without needing to alter anything’.
The second section indicates there is no need for special practices, or to speak or act in a particular way in order to get this.
In fact, as per the third section below, in trying to find your ‘authentic condition’ (which is self-liberation), you deny it and prevent liberation manifesting itself.
Listen! As I am in the authentic condition, all phenomena self-liberate in the fundamental nature. Without needing to alter anything, the teacher self-liberates in the fundamental nature. Without needing to alter anything, the teacher self-liberates in the fundamental nature. Without needing to alter anything, the retinue of disciples, too, self-liberates in the fundamental nature.
Listen! As all self-liberates, there is no need to correct the body posture or visualise a deity. There is no need to correct the voice or speech. There is no need to correct the mind through meditation.
By correcting oneself, it is not possible to find the authentic condition, and without finding the authentic condition, one cannot self-liberate. In this way one does not achieve the state of equality of the fundamental nature.
Excerpt from The Supreme Source (Kunjed Gyalpo), Chapter 29
So, what are we to do? We are essentially told that ‘you are already realised’ or ‘you are already whole’, but perhaps we don’t feel realised or whole.
We are told that no practice can take us to where we already are, but then what do we do?
The Kunjed Gyalpo exhorts us to listen to these teachings, absorb them, and see their truth directly!
But how to do this, the spiritual seeker asks.
There is no how, for in asking how you have already posited and given reality to the separate self that is looking for answer, that is looking to get somewhere. By asking how, there is already the implication that this is not it. But this is it!
The Supreme Truth and the way to it cannot be described. Only wrong ways can be described, hence the language is of negation – ‘no need to correct’….’By correcting oneself…one does not achieve’. The scripture tells us what not to do, not what to do.
The ancient method is to first listen (sravana) to the teachings repeatedly, then secondly to contemplate them and think them over (manana). This helps to develop an intellectual understanding of the teachings first, following which meditation and integration of the teachings (nididhyasana) can occur. This can occur gradually, or perhaps suddenly, without warning, a moment of clear seeing arises and the teachings that were once theoretical suddenly spring to life.
Tom Das 