detachment from entanglements

no want is the greatest bliss

 

Severing entanglements

means detachmeht from entanglements

in contrived mundane concerns. Relinquish concerns

and your body will not be under a strain,

contrive nothing and your mind will

naturally be calm.

 

As serenity and simplicity

develop day by day, worldly defilement

lessens day by day. As your behavior departs further

and further from the mundane, your mind

becomes closer and closer

to the Way.

 

…As long as we do not

initiate anything, others will naturally

not get involved; even if others initiate something,

we do not get involved. As past entangelments gradually

stop, do not form new involvements. Ritual socializing

and opportunistic intercourse naturally become

remote, and you become unburdened

and at peace. Only then can you

practice the Way.

 

Treatise on Sitting Forgetting

translated by Thomas Cleary

 

make enlightenment your standard


 
Fundamentally, this great light is there with each and every person right where they stand — empty clear through, spiritually aware, all-pervasive, it is called the scenery of the fundamental ground.

Sentient beings and buddhas are both inherently equipped with it. It is perfectly fluid and boundless, fusing everything within it. It is within your own heart and is the basis of your physical body and of the five clusters of form, sensation, conception, motivational synthesis, and consciousness. It has never been defiled or stained, and its fundamental nature is still and silent.

False thoughts suddenly arise and cover it over and block it off and confine it within the six sense faculties and sense objects. Sense faculties and sense objects are paired off, and you get stuck and begin clinging and getting attached. You grasp at all the various objects and scenes, and produce all sorts of false thoughts, and sink down into the toils of birth and death, unable to gain liberation.

All the buddhas and ancestral teachers awakened to this true source and penetrated clear through to the fundamental basis. They took pity on all the sentient beings sunken in the cycle of birth and death and were inspired by great compassion, so they appeared in the world precisely for this reason. It was also for this reason that Bodhidharma came from the West with special practice outside of doctrine.

The most important thing is for people of great faculties and sharp wisdom to turn the light of mind around and shine back and clearly awaken to this mind before a single thought is born. This mind can produce all world-transcending and worldly phenomena. When it is forever stamped with enlightenment, your inner heart is independent and transcendent and brimming over with life. As soon as you rouse your conditioned mind and set errant thoughts moving, then you have obscured the fundamental clarity. 

If you want to pass through easily and directly right now, just let your body and mind become thoroughly empty, so it is vacant and silent yet aware and luminous. Inwardly, forget all your conceptions of self, and outwardly, cut off all sensory defilements. When inside and outside are clear all the way through, there is just one true reality. 

…Let no one be deluded about cause and effect. You must realize that the causal basis of hell and heaven is all formed by your own inherent mind. 

You must keep this mind balanced and equanimous, without deluded ideas of self and others, without arbitrary loves and hates, without grasping or rejecting, without notions of gain and loss. Go on gradually nurturing this for a long time, perhaps twenty or thirty years. Whether you encounter favorable or adverse conditions, do not retreat or regress — then when you come to the juncture between life and death, you will naturally be set free and be not afraid. As the saying goes, “Truth requires sudden awakening, but the phenomenal level calls for gradual cultivation.”

I often see those who are trying to study Buddhism just use their worldly intelligence to sift among the verbal teachings of the buddhas and ancestral teacher, trying to pick out especially wondrous sayings to use as conversation pieces to display their ability and understanding. This is not the correct view of the matter. You must abandon your world view and sit quietly with mind silent. Forget entangling causes and investigate with your whole being. When you are thoroughly clear, then whatever you bring forth from your own inexhaustible treasure of priceless jewels is sure to be genuine and real.

So first you must awaken to the Fundamental and clearly see the essence where mind equals buddha. Detach from all false entanglements and become free and clean. After that respectfully practice all forms of good, and arouse great compassion to bring benefits to all sentient beings. In all that you do, be even and balanced and attuned to the inherent equality of all things — be selfless and have no attachments. When wondrous wisdom manifests itself and you penetrate through to the basic essence, all your deeds will be wonder-working. Thus it is said, “Just manage to accept the truth — you won’t be deceived.”

Make enlightenment your standard, and don’t feel bad if it is slow in coming. Take care!
 

Yuanwu

zen letters

🪷

 

die and stay dead and go on living

this mysterious place

 

To

realize the Way you

must die and stay dead and

go on living. With one mighty blow,

sever the attachments of mind

and self and dwell in

emptiness.

 

Pouring

emptiness into emptiness

like waves coming to shore,

you become quiet,

luminous,

still.

 

Where

before there were

ten thousand entanglements, now

there is undifferentiated

Oneness, clarity,

peace.

 

Wei wu Wei Ching, Chapter 3

i ching / hexagram 3 ☯️ difficulty at the beginning

 

Paperback / Kindle here

iPad/iPhone

iBooks

 

brian browne walker taoist app bundle ios ipad iphone

You

can now buy

Wei wu Wei Ching as part of a

five-app bundle of Taoist classics 

for iPhone or iPad for less than

the cost of one hardcover

book.