Even marvelous enlightenment
is the phantom city.
Posts Tagged → life
the tao doesn’t avoid the world
Do you think
you can clear your mind
by sitting constantly in silent
meditation? This makes
your mind narrow,
not clear.
Integral awareness is
fluid and adaptable, present in all
places and at all times. That is
true meditation.
Who can attain
clarity and simplicity by
avoiding the world? The Tao is clear
and simple, and it doesn’t
avoid the world.
Why not simply honor
your parents, love your children, help
your brothers and sisters, be faithful to your
friends, care for your mate with devotion, complete
your work cooperatively and joyfully, assume responsibility
for problems, practice virtue without first demanding
it of others, understand the highest truths yet
retain an ordinary manner?
That would be true clarity,
true simplicity, true
mastery.
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do not give birth to a single thought
be the same all the way through
Just
do not give birth
to a single thought: let go
and become crystal clear. As soon
as any notions of right and wrong and self
and other and gain and loss are present,
do not follow them off. Then you
will be personally studying
with your own true
enlightened
teacher.
fame is water carried in a basket
Fame is water
carried in a basket.
Hold the wind in your fist, or
tie up an elephant with one hair.
These are accomplishments
that will make you
famous.
an object of esteem becomes a nest
Haven’t you seen the saying of Master Yantou that whenever you have an object of esteem, it becomes a nest?…
Those who get a taste for the sayings of people of old make extraordinary sayings and wonderful statements into a nest…Those who get a taste for a state of quiescent silence without words or speech make a nest of closing the eyes and sitting in a ghost cave in a mountain of darkness on the other side of the prehistoric Buddhas. Those who get a taste for the goings-on of daily activities make a nest of raising their eyebrows, blinking their eyes, and alerting attention…
If you do not have a strong will and discipline to step back and realize your error, you will imagine what you esteem to be extraordinary, imagine it to be mysterious and marvelous, imagine it to be peace and security, imagine it to be ultimate, imagine it to be liberation.
Those who entertain such imaginations could not be helped even if the Buddha appeared in the world. In the teachings this is called the confusion of ignorance and benightedness. Why? because you are ignorant you cling to error and consider it right. Because you are benighted you remain plunged into what you esteem and cannot budge.
If you do not produce anything in your mind, and are not fixated on anything, then you have no object of esteem. When you have no object of esteem, you naturally have no greed and no dependence on things, independent in the midst of things, with bare-boned strength.
If you want such accord right now, it is not difficult; just be equanimous in mind, unaffected by anything. What is affectation? Formulating concepts of sentient beings, concepts of Buddha, concepts of the mundane, concepts of the transcendental, concepts of seeking detachment, concepts of seeking enlightened knowledge. Those are all called affectations.
Just concentrate intensely on the brink of arousal, and leap out in one jump — this mind will be clear, independently liberated. Then as soon as you sense this, turn upward, and you will spontaneously be lucid everywhere; it will be evident in everything.
When you manage to reach such a state, don’t keep taking note of it. If you keep taking note of it, then you’ll have an object of esteem.
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