Posted by peoplewatcher on 11-07-2013, 10:40 PM :
Liberation
Let go of all your previous imaginings, opinions, interpretations. worldly knowledge, intellectualism, egoism, and competitiveness; become like a dead tree, like cold ashes. When you reach the point where feelings are ended, views are gone, and your mind is clean and naked, you open up to Zen realisation.
After that it is also necessary to develop consistency, keeping the mind pure and free from adulteration at all times. If there is the slightest fluctuation, there is no hope of transcending the world.
Cut through resolutely, and then your state will be peaceful. When you cannot be included in any stage, whether of sages or of ordinary people, then you are like a bird freed from its cage.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
From "Classics Of Buddhism And Zen" The Collected Translations of Thomas Cleary
Resolve
The Way is arrived at by enlightenment. The first priority is to establish resolve - it is no small matter to step directly from the bondage of the ordinary person into transcendent experience of the realm of sages. It requires that your mind be firm as steel to cut off the flow of birth and death, accept your original real nature, not see anything at all as existing inside or outside yourself, and make your heart perfectly clear, without any obstruction, so all actions and endeavors emerge from the fundamental.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
The Essential Point
The essential point in learning Zen is to make the roots deep and the stem firm. 24 hours a day, be aware of where you are and what you do.
When no thoughts have arisen and nothing at all is on your mind, you merge with the boundless and become wholly empty and still. Then your actions are not interrupted by doubt and hesitation.
This is called the fundamental matter right at hand.
As soon as you produce any opinion or interpretation, and want to attain Zen and be a master, you have already fallen into psychological and material realms. You have become trapped by ordinary senses and perceptions, by ideas of gain and loss, by ideas of right and wrong. Half drunk and half sober, you cannot manage effectively.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
Tools
The words of buddhas and Zen masters are just tools, means of gaining access to truth. Once you are clearly enlightened and experience truth, all the teachings are within you.
Then you look upon the verbal teachings of buddhas and Zen masters as something in the realm of reflections or echoes, and you do not wear them around on your head.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
Serene Response
When you can actively respond to changes in the midst of the hurly-burly of life while being inwardly empty and serene, and can also avoid infatuation with quietude when in a quiet environment, then wherever you are is where you live. Only those who have attained the fundamental are capable of being inwardly empty while outwardly harmonious.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
Dealing with Opposition
If people find fault with you and try to put you in a bad light, wrongly slandering and vilifying you, just step back and observe yourself. Don't harbor any dislike, don't enter into any contests, and don't get upset, angry, or resentful.
Just cut right through it and be as if you never heard or saw it. Eventually malevolent pests will disappear of themselves.
If you contend with them, then a bad name will bounce back and forth with never an end in sight.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
Zen Enlightenment and Zen Work
An ancient Zen master said that Zen is like learning archery; only after long practice do you hit the bullseye.
Enlightenment is experienced instantaneously, but Zen work must be done over a long time, like a bird that when first hatched is naked and scrawny, but then grows feathers as it is nourished, until it can fly high and far.
Therefore those who have attained clear penetrating enlightenment then need fine tuning.
When it comes to worldly situations, by which ordinary people get suffocated, those who have attained Zen get through them all by being empty. Thus everything is their own gateway to liberation.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
Zen Devices
The intention of all Zen devices, states, sayings, and expressions is in their ability to hook the seeker. The only important thing is liberation - people should not be attached to the means.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
Cliché
Although the great Zen teachers did not establish clichés and slogans, eventually seekers misapprehended this and turned this itself into a cliché and a slogan - they made a cliché of no cliché, and a slogan of no slogan. They should not cling to the means as an end.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
Unconcern
Cut through all situations and don't allow yourself to continue with thoughts of whether these situations are favourable or adverse. Eventually you will naturally reach the realm of non-doing and unconcern. But if you have the slightest desire for unconcern, this has already become a concern.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
Pride
If you have the idea of superiority and are proud of your ability, this is a disaster.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
Penetrating Zen
People who are sharp should have their feet on the ground, and need an iron spine, travelling through the world looking on everything as illusory, holding still and being the master, not following human sentiments, cutting through discrimination between others and self, and getting rid of intellectual interpretations of Zen.
Then, when it comes to practical function, responding to conditions, they don't fall into clichés. Developing single-minded persistence, keeping profound calm, lightening body and mind, while in the midst of the toil of the world they penetrate through to freedom.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
Stumbled Past
As soon as you try to chase and grab Zen, you've already stumbled past it.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
Direct Zen
If you have great perceptions and capacities, you need not necessarily contemplate the sayings and stories of ancient Zen masters. Just correct your attention and quiet your mind from the time you arise in the morning, and whatever you say or do, review it carefully and see where it comes from and what makes all this happen.
Once you can pass through right in the midst of present worldly conditions, the same applies to all conditions - what need is there to remove them?
Then you can go beyond "Zen", transcend all parameters, and magically produce a sanctuary of purity, effortlessness, and coolness, right in the midst of the turmoil of the world.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
Non-Dualism
You do not have to abandon worldly activities in order to attain effortless unconcern. You should know that worldly activities and effortless unconcern are not 2 different things - but if you keep thinking about rejection and grasping, you make them into 2.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
Subjective Zen
Many intelligent people understand Zen subjectively and are unable to let go of their subjectivity. They still their minds without experiencing their real nature, and think this is emptiness. They try to abandon existence to cling to emptiness. This is a serious malady.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
Dissolving Illusions
It is necessary to detach from both rejection and clinging, from both being and non-being, so that you are unburdened, completely tranquil, empty and still, calm and peaceful.
Then you can trust this true pure ineffable mind, and when mundane conditions beckon involvement, you notice it doesn't go along with them.
You can only do this by long-term work on your own, empty and free, to dissolve away illusions and bring about your own insight.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
Basic Mind
When you are aware of the completeness, fluidity, and boundlessness of the basic mind, how can sense objects be partners to it? Basic mind is utterly free, open and pure, clear and ethereal; keep thoroughly aware of it, and do not allow superficiality. Then it is so high there is nothing above it, so broad it is boundless; clean and bare, perfectly round, this basic mind is without contamination or contrivance.
~ Zen Master Yuanwu
