Zen

Zen Master Huang Po: stuffing yourself with knowledge

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

zen mountains

If you now set about using your minds to seek Mind, listening to the teaching of others, and hoping to reach the goal through mere learning, when will you ever succeed? Some of the ancients had sharp minds; they no sooner heard the Doctrine proclaimed than they hastened to discard all learning. So they were called, ‘Sages who, abandoning learning, have come to rest in spontaneity’.

In these days people only seek to stuff themselves with knowledge and deductions, seeking everywhere for book-knowledge and calling this ‘Dharma-practice’ [true practice of The Way]. They do not know that so much knowledge and deduction have just the contrary effect of piling up obstacles. Merely acquiring a lot of knowledge makes you like a child who gives himself indigestion by gobbling too many curds.

Merely acquiring a lot of knowledge makes you like a child who gives himself indigestion by gobbling too many curds.

Huang Po Zen Teachings

Those who study the Way according to the Three Vehicles [the 3 main Buddhist schools of Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism] are all like this. All you can call them is people who suffer from indigestion. When so-called knowledge and deductions are not digested, they become poisons, for they belong only to the plane of samsara [the plane of suffering, the unenlightened state]. In the Absolute, there is nothing at all of this kind.

So it is said: ‘In the armoury of my sovereign, there is no Sword of Thusness’. All the concepts you have formed in the past must be discarded and replaced by void…The canonical teachings of the Three Vehicles are just remedies for temporary needs. They were taught to meet such needs and so are of temporary value and differ one from another. If only this could be understood, there would be no more doubts about it.

Above all it is essential not to select some particular teaching suited to a certain occasion, and, being impressed by its forming part of the written canon, regard it as an immutable concept. Why so? Because in truth there is no unalterable Dharma [Teaching, Teaching method] which the Tathagata [The Buddha; a term the Buddha often referred to himself by] could have preached. People of our sect would never argue that there could be such a thing. We just know how to put all mental activity to rest and thus achieve tranquillity. We certainly do not begin by thinking things out and end up in perplexity.

Because in truth there is no unalterable Dharma…We certainly do not begin by thinking things out and end up in perplexity. 

Taken from The Zen Teaching of Huang Po (Chun Chou record no. 30)

Live today: interview with Tom Das at Buddha at the Gas Pump

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

Just a reminder that I will be interviewed live today by Rick Archer from Buddha at the Gas Pump today at  11.30am US central time (5.30pm UK time, 4:30pm GMT).

If you want to watch it the interview will be streamed here:

 

Zen Master Huang Po: Studying the Way

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

Huang Po Zen Teachings

Regarding this Zen Doctrine of ours, since it was first transmitted, it has never been taught that men should seek for learning or form concepts. ‘Studying the Way’ is just a figure of speech. It is a method of arousing people’s interest in the early stages of their development

In fact, the Way is not something which can be studied. Study leads to the retention of concepts and so the Way is entirely misunderstood. Moreover, the Way is not something specially existing; it is something called Mahayana Mind – Mind which is not to be found inside, outside, or in the middle. Truly it is not located anywhere.

‘Studying the Way’ is just a figure of speech…In fact, the Way is not something which can be studied.

The first step is to refrain from knowledge-based concepts. This implies that if you were to follow the empirical method to the utmost limit, on reaching that limit you would still be unable to locate Mind.

The way is spiritual Truth and was originally without name or title. It was only because people ignorantly sought for it empirically that the Buddhas appeared and taught them to eradicate this method of approach.

The first step is to refrain from knowledge-based concepts.

Fearing that no one would understand, they selected the name ‘Way.’ You must not allow this name to lead you into a mental concept of a road. So it is said, ‘When the fish is caught we pay no more attention to the trap.’

When body and mind achieve spontaneity, the Way is reached and Mind is understood.

A shramana [seeker, monk] is so called because he has penetrated to the original source of all things. The fruit of attaining the shramana stage is gained by putting an end to all anxiety; it does not come from book-learning.

Taken from The Zen Teaching of Huang Po (Chun Chou record no. 29)

Livestream interview with Tom Das at Buddha at the Gas Pump 23rd July 2016

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

In case anyone wants to hear me talking about this stuff…I’m going to be interviewed LIVE on Buddha at the Gas Pump.

It will take place and be livestreamed on Sat 23rd July 11.30am US central time (5.30pm UK time). Click below for how to watch the livestream ❤

Upcoming Interviews

Zen Master Huang Po: the true teaching

~ Tom Das ~ 1 Comment

Huang Po Zen Teachings.jpg

Q: Up to now, you have refuted everything which has been said. You have done nothing to point out the true Dharma [the true teaching, the true way] to us.

Huang Po: In the true Dharma there is no confusion, but you produce confusion by such questions. What sort of ‘true Dharma’ can you go seeking for?

Q: Since the confusion arises from my questions, what – will Your Reverence’s answer be?

Huang Po: Observe things as they are and don’t pay attention to other people. There are some people just like mad dogs barking at everything that moves, even barking when the wind stirs among the grass and leaves.’

Taken from The Zen Teaching of Huang Po (Chun Chou record no. 28)

Tom’s comments:

The questioner appears frustrated at not being able to obtain anything tangible from Huang Po. ‘What is the true teaching? What is The Way?’, he asks.

The master replies: you yourself create the confusion, the questions being evidence of this. Is there even a ‘true Dharma’ to be sought?

The answer? Just be with what is, see things as they are, don’t worry about the words and ideas of others caught up in their own illusions and fears.

 

Zen Buddhist Master Yuanwu: Ordinary everyday enlightenment

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment

yuanwu letters

There are no mundane things outside Buddhism,

and there is no Buddhism outside mundane things

Yuanwu

Tom’s comments:

Before we are spiritual seekers, there is just ordinary life. Whilst we are seekers, we learn about and may experience wonderful supernatural things such as mystic visions, psychic phenomena, other-worldly states of consciousness and bliss. We may seek transcendence and escape from the things of everyday life. When the truth is seen, all we are left with is this, just this, completely ordinary, ‘mundane’.

Sure it’s wonderful too, but there’s no getting away from the ordinariness of it all: wherever we look, wherever we go, whatever we do, it is here/there, always. What is more ordinary than that!

The ordinariness of my ‘enlightenment experience’:

Tao Te Ching: Before you learnt to smile

~ Tom Das ~ 2 Comments

mountain river

…Other people are joyous,
as though they were at a spring festival.
I alone am unconcerned and expressionless,
like an infant before it has learned to smile.

Other people have more than they need;
I alone seem to possess nothing.
I am lost and drift about with no place to go.
I am like a fool, my mind is in chaos.

Ordinary people are bright;
I alone am dark.
Ordinary people are clever;
I alone am dull.
Ordinary people seem discriminating;
I alone am muddled and confused.

I drift on the waves on the ocean,
blown at the mercy of the wind.
Other people have their goals,
I alone am dull and uncouth.

I am different from ordinary people.
I nurse from the Great Mother’s breasts.

Tao Te Ching, verse 20

Tom’s comments:

This is one of my favourite verses of this wonderful text. I remember when I first read it as a university student in the 90s, I was particularly struck by the phrase ‘like an infant before it has learned to smile’. We can be free of needing to be happy, to smile, to conform, and we can simply be true to ourselves.

This world can seem so confusing. It can feel like everyone else seems to know what they want and where they are going. Of course, it’s such an illusion! How can anyone know what this is all about? If you think you know, you have surely missed the mark!

The Sage sees through all illusions, she sees through the faux-intelligence, goals and make-believe of people around her. The Sage knows he is but Nature expressing herself: he is dependent on her, as a child is on his mother’s breast milk, and he is also Her.

He sees the inherent unfathomable mystery at the heart of life and lovingly pities those who think ‘they understand’.

J. Krishnamurti: If you listen completely, there is no listener

~ Tom Das ~ 3 Comments

Krishnamurti young

Listen to those crows. Do listen. If you listen completely, is there a centre from which you are listening? Your ears are listening. There is the noise, there is the vibration and all the rest of it, but there is no centre from which you are listening. There is attention.
Therefore if you listen completely, there is no listener; there is only the fact of that noise. To listen completely you must be silent, and that silence is not something in thought, created by thought.
When you listen to that crow that is making the noise before it goes to sleep, so completely that there is no listener, you will see that there is no entity that says, ‘I am listening.’
Jiddu Krishnamurti, The Collected Works, Vol. XVI, p.59 ‘Choiceless Awareness’ Bombay 1966

 

Tom’s Comments:

Listening is the same as seeing. It goes to the heart of the teachings, it is a complete teaching in itself. If this one teaching is fully understood, penetrated through and through, then that is the entire teaching.

When you truly listen, you are simple seeing things as they actually are, not as you project or interpret them to be. Without the verbiage of your mind with all its opinions and judgements, you see life as it truly is.

This is the living truth. And in that truth it can be seen there is no doer or thinker. The entity that we take ourselves to be can be directly seen to be false – it never existed apart from in our thoughts and imagination.

Zen (Chan) master Yuanwu: No fixed teaching

~ Tom Das ~ Leave a comment
Central_Asian_Buddhist_Monks
A fresco from the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves

All teachings are expedients

just for the purpose of breaking through obsessions, doubts,

intellectual interpretations & egocentric ideas

Yuanwu (1063-1135)

Tom’s comments:

If there was ever a dogma in Zen Buddhism* (and there is no dogma by the way) it is that there is no fixed Zen teaching. In Yuanwu’s letters, from which this quote was taken, Yuanwu gives us a no frills introduction and foray into the heart of Zen.

In this quote he gets straight to telling us how the Buddhist teachings work: the teachings are not necessarily  100% true in themselves, but are devices used to set us free. What is the correct teaching? It’s simply the teaching that works. This is what the word ‘expedient’ means: whatever works is the ‘correct teaching’.

And so we hear of zen teachings ranging from reading the scriptures to simply hearing the sound of a ringing bell; from seeing an object drop to the ground to the admittedly extreme physical blows that are often dished out (and received) by zen masters as a form of teaching – not a method I would advocate, I hasten to add.

So the teaching methods and expressions of truth may vary from person to person and from time and place, forged out of the cultures and characters of the moment. This is why the teaching reinvents itself from generation to generation, and varies from teacher to teacher, even when the core teaching and core ‘realisation’ is the same.

*Yuanwu was actually Chinese, so strictly speaking he is a Chan Master. When Chan Buddhism spread to Japan it became known as Zen, Zen simply being the Japanese word for Chan.