Zen on Consciousness

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LastLegend
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Zen on Consciousness

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16. Answer: You only need to have total confidence and effective determination. Gently quiet your mind, and I will teach you once again.

You should make your own mind & body uncluttered and serene, unentangled in any objects whatsoever. Sit straight, rightly aware, and fine-tune your breath so it is well adjusted. Examine your mind to see it as neither inside nor outside nor in between. Watch it calmly, carefully and objectively; when you master this, you clearly see that the mind's consciousness moves in a flow, like a water-current or like heat waves rising without end.

When you have seen this consciousness, you find it is neither out nor in: without hurry, objectively & calmly observe it. When you master this, then melt and flux over and over, empty yet solid, profoundly stable, and then the flowing consciousness will disappear.

Those who get this consciousness to disappear will then destroy the obstructing confusions of the Bodhisattvas of the ten stages. Once this consciousness is gone, then the mind is open and still, quiet, serene and calm, perfectly pure, and enormously stable.

I can't speak about it any further. If you want to attain it, take up the chapter in the Nirvana Sutra on the indestructible body, and the chapter in the Vimalakirti sutra on seeing the Immovable Budha: contemplate and reflect on them without hurry, search them carefully and read them thoroughly. If you are totaly familiar with these sutras and can actually maintain this mind in whatever you are doing - even in the face of the five desires and eight winds - then your pure conduct will be set firmly and your task will be complete; in the end you will no longer be subjected to a body that is born and dies.

The five desires are for images, tones, aromas, tastes and tangibles. The eight winds are gain and loss, praise and blame, honor and insult, pain and pleasure. This is where adepts polish and refine the Buddha-nature; it's no wonder that they do not attain freedom in this body. A sutra says, "If there is no place for a Buddha to abide in the world, Bodhisattvas cannot actually function."

If you desire to be free of this conditiond body, do not discriminate between the sharpness of dullness of your faculties in the past; the best require a single moment, and the worst take countless eons.

If you've got he strength and time to develop a altruistic roots of virtues according to people's natures so as t help your own self as well as others, adorning a Buddha-land, you must comprehend the Four Reliances and find out what reality actually is like. If you rely on clinging to the leter, you will miss the true source.

For monks learning to study the Path as renunciants, the fact is that "home-leaving" means leaving the fetters of birth & death: that's real "home-leaving".

When right mindfulness is totally present and cultivation of the path is successful, even if your limbs are cut off, so long as you don't lose your right mindfulness at the time of death, you will instantly attain Buddhahood.

I have written the foregoing treatise simply by taking the sense of sutras according to faithl; in truth, I don't know by perfectly complete experience. If there is anything opposed to the Buddha's principles, I will willingly repent and get rid of it; whatsoever is in accord with the Buddha's path, however, I donate to all beings, hoping they all will get to know the fundamental mind and attain enlightenment at once. May those who listen to this work become Buddhas in the futuer; I hope you will save my followers first.


https://terebess.hu/zen/daman.html
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FiveSkandhas
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Re: Zen on Consciousness

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LastLegend wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 10:47 pm ..If you want to attain it, take up the chapter in the Nirvana Sutra on the indestructible body, and the chapter in the Vimalakirti sutra on seeing the Immovable Buddha...
Thank you very much for giving me today's reading assignment, friend!
"One should cultivate contemplation in one’s foibles. The foibles are like fish, and contemplation is like fishing hooks. If there are no fish, then the fishing hooks have no use. The bigger the fish is, the better the result we will get. As long as the fishing hooks keep at it, all foibles will eventually be contained and controlled at will." -Zhiyi

"Just be kind." -Atisha
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Re: Zen on Consciousness

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FiveSkandhas wrote: Wed Apr 21, 2021 1:50 am
LastLegend wrote: Tue Apr 20, 2021 10:47 pm ..If you want to attain it, take up the chapter in the Nirvana Sutra on the indestructible body, and the chapter in the Vimalakirti sutra on seeing the Immovable Buddha...
Thank you very much for giving me today's reading assignment, friend!
Not my words...it’s translation by people. I was just making a point consciousness needs to be transcended.
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Re: Zen on Consciousness

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I personally favor posing a question to myself and not taking granted based on what I know. But each individual is different...so. I’d ask myself how does distinguish distinguish? Because that’s how my teacher often asks me questions.
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Re: Zen on Consciousness

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Or another way is how does know know? In direct contemplation. Meaning we want to know how it behaves...but that’s just me. To says that sound for example is known without something knows that sound is weird. Have to know for ourselves what the hell knows and not based on prior learning concepts. The question we ask ourselves is meant to penetrate directly.
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Re: Zen on Consciousness

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Chan is often said to be easy but also difficult.
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Re: Zen on Consciousness

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That’s meditation I guess :lol: . One form.
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Re: Zen on Consciousness

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LastLegend wrote: Thu Apr 22, 2021 12:36 am That’s meditation I guess :lol: . One form.
There is actually a lot of physical movement and even vocal activity that goes on in at certain stages of Rinzai Zazen. It's not a "state secret" like Vajrayana lore, but it's not something that's generally talked about much, either, unless your teacher thinks you need it.

Over the years your Rinzai teacher might just casually slip in this or that little "thingie" to go along with bread and butter Zazen: something you do with your arms outstretched, maybe; a little cycle of thumb movements; stuff involving perhipheral vision.

He might dole out these little tricks and treats from time to time over the years, until one day you wake up and realize you have collected a whole host of vigorous, highly physical meditational techniques that take you far beyond "just sitting."
"One should cultivate contemplation in one’s foibles. The foibles are like fish, and contemplation is like fishing hooks. If there are no fish, then the fishing hooks have no use. The bigger the fish is, the better the result we will get. As long as the fishing hooks keep at it, all foibles will eventually be contained and controlled at will." -Zhiyi

"Just be kind." -Atisha
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Re: Zen on Consciousness

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I am not familiar with Rinzai so no idea.
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Re: Zen on Consciousness

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I actually don’t know what they teach now because I was never a student of one. I am an illegitimate neglected child of Chan :lol: .
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Re: Zen on Consciousness

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I honestly I don’t care what technique or method is used...it might take a long time or short...but the destination is somehow consciousness has to disappear.
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Re: Zen on Consciousness

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LastLegend wrote: Thu Apr 22, 2021 1:58 am I honestly I don’t care what technique or method is used...it might take a long time or short...but the destination is somehow consciousness has to disappear.
Interesting you see it as consciousness disappearing. "Seeing your own true nature" or Kensho (見性) is the closest thing to an explicit goal we get in Rinzai. Then after Kensho comes "stabilizing Kensho."
"One should cultivate contemplation in one’s foibles. The foibles are like fish, and contemplation is like fishing hooks. If there are no fish, then the fishing hooks have no use. The bigger the fish is, the better the result we will get. As long as the fishing hooks keep at it, all foibles will eventually be contained and controlled at will." -Zhiyi

"Just be kind." -Atisha
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Re: Zen on Consciousness

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FiveSkandhas wrote: Thu Apr 22, 2021 2:40 am
LastLegend wrote: Thu Apr 22, 2021 1:58 am I honestly I don’t care what technique or method is used...it might take a long time or short...but the destination is somehow consciousness has to disappear.
Interesting you see it as consciousness disappearing. "Seeing your own true nature" or Kensho (見性) is the closest thing to an explicit goal we get in Rinzai. Then after Kensho comes "stabilizing Kensho."
You are right in pointing out in what I see...but it’s the construct...such as what constructs such?
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Re: Zen on Consciousness

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Sorry to be obvious which I didn’t know it wasn’t obvious...construct...start with distinguishing then followed by how we process it should be...but these language is only raft that helps us row towards Samadhi...how we design it to be through processing could lead to many imaginative situations. It’s our habit.
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Re: Zen on Consciousness

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Awareness has a bolder appearance of experience of “me” without even stating explicitly “it’s me.” Even without the bolder experience of awareness, there is still capacity to recognize. This is the simplest state...original consciousness and where we should be.
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Re: Zen on Consciousness

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Mind is a general term for mind :lol: ...sometimes it refers to consciousness it depends on context, other times it refers to nature.
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