Broadly, there are three kinds of mind: The first, citta, is here called the thinking mind. The second, hridya, is here called the mind of grass and trees. The third, vriddha, is here called the collected and vital mind. Out of these three, the one we use to kick the bodhi-mind into action is, in every case, the thinking mind. The Indian word "bodhi" is here called the truth, or the way, or enlightenment. The Indian word "citta" is here called the thinking mind. Without this thinking mind there is no chance of rousing the bodhi-mind to action. To see this thinking mind as the bodhi-mind itself, is not it. But it is with this thinking mind that we kick the bodhi-mind into action. Kicking the bodhi-mind into action means making, and sticking to, the following vow: "Before crossing myself over to the far shore of enlightenment, I shall cause all living beings to cross over." One who kicks into action this mind, even if he is coarse in appearance, is already the guiding teacher of all living beings....
-- to be continued
Constant spontaneous production of this thought:
"How to make living beings
Able to enter the supreme truth,
And quickly realize a buddha's body?"
This is the very lifetime of the Thus-Come....
-- to be continued
3 comments:
Somebody asked: What kind of thinking do you think kick starts the bodhi mind?
For example: "Can the original and true teaching of the Buddha be clarified by control freaks trying to be right?"
Two very useful questions. Thank-you both.
Regards,
Harry.
For another example:
Marjory Barlow clearly demonstrated the principle that, if what you are after is undoing, release, liberation from muscular imprisonment, then you should clearly understand this: YOU CANNOT DO AN UNDOING.
You cannot do an undoing -- not directly, not physically.
But you can wish for an undoing, you can desire it, you can wish it, you can think it -- indirectly, mentally.
And you can allow a movement in which undoing may happen spontaneously, in which undoing may do itself.
Now, even though I am not sufficiently clear in my own practice about this principle, has there been any so-called Zen Master in the last 750 years who has been clearer than me in regard to this principle? Not that I know of.
Has anybody clearly understood for the last 750 years what Zen Master Dogen meant by mental sitting as opposed to physical sittting, physical sitting as opposed to mental sitting, and true sitting as opposed to the Soto Zen principle of "SHIKAN TAZA."? Not that I know of, not since Master Dogen.
When I was young, I went to bed, quite a lot, with a woman of my dreams, and I won a few karate tournaments. Those kind of experiences would often leave me thinking: "So what?" "What good was that to all living beings?" That kind of thinking led me to go off on my own to Japan to devote myself to seek Zen enlightenment -- in the first instance in the concrete, or wooden context, of traditional, non-tournament karate-dojo, and thereafter in the teaching of Zen Master Dogen's Shobogenzo.
Now I am thinking: "How can I clarify for many others the fundamental message of Shobogenzo -- about physical sitting, mental sitting, and sitting gone beyond physical and mental?"
"Even though I am still liable to lose sight of that fundamental message in my own practice, clinging on to body and mind, how can I clarify that message to others, how can I best communicate that fundamental teaching to others?"
"How can I transmit to many others the thought-messages that Marjory transmitted to me, about letting the neck release, to allow the head out, to allow the spine to lengthen and the back to widen, while widening across the upper part of the arms, and allowing the hips, knees, and ankles to come undone?"
"How to share with many others,
The truth that Marjory woke me up to,
About feeling, about thinking, and about allowing undoing in movement,
So that many may quickly accomplish a buddha's body?"
Post a Comment