understanding 'to leave and not to leave the worldly'
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it's good to understand this, from my master's master and 13th Patriacrh Yi Guang's disciple, Li Bi Nan and some quotes from 6th Patriacrh Huineng.
i think it's best to learn from great enlightened masters' texts than read from unenlightened journalist's pov. can get misleaded, when the texts sound very nice but not always true.
http://www.fosss.org/brgq/1026.htm
The topic is Dharma of leaving samsara and not leaving samsara. Actually this 2 dharma gates are One Dharma gate.
Maybe u ppl do not believe, thinking they are seperate issues, but they are one, only difference in depth of understanding.
Why? If u are enlightened, they are one, if not, delusively, uÂ’ll think itÂ’s two or three etc. Dharma got low and high understanding, said Buddha Himself.
should understand the dharma from the root, so that it can grow from there. if without root, like a flower in a vase, looks good from the outside, but without the root, it cannot grow wisdom.
Learn Buddhism is to help liberate sentient beings. go where to help? where is sentient beings? u have to come back to samsara to help. If left samsara, where got sentient beings? therefore leaving samsara and not leaving samsara is One issue! Buddhism got 5 vehicle. After becoming Buddha, u start from the human and deva realms.
6th Patriacrh Huineng mentioned Buddhism in samsara, do not leave mindful of samsara. To leave samsara to seek bodhi is like seeking horns on a rabbit.
Worldly ppl are deluded. one can gain realisation by watching them being upside down, if one were to leave samsara, itÂ’ll be nothing to see, or learn. Becoming Buddha/arahat also need to learn here in human realm. hence human rebirth is difficult to have.
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another great link on this:
http://www.dharma.com.tw/X2GB/D21Story/S5005RealBudd.htm
Ppl who learn Buddhadharma and donÂ’t learn Buddhadharma said Buddhadharma everyday, but whatÂ’s Buddhadharma really? Actually itÂ’s range is very vast. All worldly things, conditional, good or bad, real or unreal is all included in Dharma. Hence it includes the worldly dharma, leaving the worldly dharma, and even leaving nirvana etc. ItÂ’s a Truth itself.
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Asked 6th Patriarch Huineng, HowÂ’s Buddhadharma not two?
ItÂ’s including All right dharma, evil dharma, worldly samathi, leaving worldly, and even leaving nirvana.
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Yes according to Mahayana, Bodhisattvas should be completely non-dual to the point that they do not seek Nirvana over Samsara, which is 'Fei Kong Fei You'. Which is why they are able to remain in samsara and help others.
The most important issue here is whether one is 'aware' or 'awakened'. Bodhisattva is 'Jue' and 'You Qing', while he is compassionate and remains in samsara, he is awakened and aware. So the most important point is 'Jue Wu'.
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All dharmas are 'One Dharma', 'One Taste', and realising this nonduality is necessary especially for all Mahayana and bodhisattva practitioners:
Q: Some of these Nondual traditions, particularly the Tantra, get pretty wild.
KW: Yes, some of them get pretty wild. They are not afraid of samsara, they ride it constantly. They don't abandon the defiled states, they enter them with enthusiasm, and play with them, and exaggerate them, and they couldn't care less whether they are higher or lower, because there is only God.
In other words, all experiences have the same One Taste. Not a single experience is closer to or further from One Taste, You cannot engineer a way to get closer to God, for there is only God - the radical secret of the Nondual schools.
At the same time, all of this occurs within some very strong ethical frameworks, and you are not simply allowed to play Dharma Bums and call that being Nondual. In most of the traditions, in fact, you have to master the first three stages of transpersonal development (psychic, subtle, and causal) before you will be allowed to talk about the fourth or Nondual state. "Crazy wisdom" occurs in a very strict ethical atmosphere.
But the important point is that in the Nondual traditions, you take a vow, a very sacred vow, which is the foundation of all of your training, and the vows is that you will not disappear into cessation - you will not hide out in nirvana, you will not evaporate in nirodh, you will not abandon the world by tucking yourself into nirvikalpa.
Rather, you promise to ride the surf of samsara until all beings caught in that surf can see that it is just a manifestation of Emptiness. Your vow is to pass through cessation and into Nonduality as quickly as possible so you can help all beings recognize the Unborn in the very midst of their born existence.
So these Nondual traditions do not necessarily abandon emotions, or thoughts, or desires, or inclinations. The task its simply to see the Emptiness of all Form, not to actually get rid of all Form. And so Forms continue to arise, and you learn to surf. The Enlightenment is indeed primordial, but this Enlightenment continues forever, and it forever changes its Form because new Forms always arise, and you are one with those.
So the call of the Nondual traditions is: Abide as Emptiness, embrace all Form. The liberation is in the Emptiness, never in the Form, but Emptiness embraces all forms as a mirror all its objects. So the Forms continue to arise, and, as the sound of one hand clapping, you are all those Forms. You are the display. You and the universe are One Taste. Your Original Face is the purest Emptiness, and therefore every time you look in the mirror, you see only the entire Kosmos.According to the Idealists - and the Nondual sages everywhere - the extraordinary and altogether paradoxical secret is that the Final release is always already accomplished. The "last step" is to step off the cycle of time altogether, and find the Timeless there from the start, every-present from the very beginning and at every point along the way, with no deviations whatsoever.
- A Brief History of Everything, Ken Wilber
"The Good," says Hegel, "the absolutely Good, is eternally accomplishing itself in the world; and the result is that it need not wait upon us, but is already in full actuality accomplished."
I have one last quote for you, from Findlay, one of Hegel's great interpreters: "It is by the capacity to understand this that the true Hegelian is marked off from his often diligent and scholarly, but still profoundly misguided misinterpreter, who still yearns after the showy spectacular climax, the Absolute coming down... accompanied by a flock of doves, when a simple return to utter ordinariness is in place [cf. Zen's "ordinary mind"]. Finite existence in the here and now, with every limitation, is, Hegel teaches, when rightly regarded and accepted, identical with the infinite existence which is everywhere and always. To live in Main Street is, if one lives in the right spirit, to inhabit the Holy City."
As Plotinus knew and Nagarjuna taught: always and always, the other world is this world rightly seen. Every Form is Emptiness just as it is. The radical secret of the supreme identity is that there is only God. There is only the Kosmos of One Taste, always already fully present, always already perfectly accomplished, always already the sound of one hand clapping. And the very belief that we could deviate from this is the arrogance of the egoic delusion, the haunting mask of divine egoism gloating over the smoking ruins of its own contracting tendencies. We can preserve nature. but Nature preserves us.
But most importantly still, is that we must be awakened to that reality
p.s The 'God' here refers to Dharma Nature/Buddha Nature. -
how do we awaken to that reality?Originally posted by An Eternal Now:All dharmas are 'One Dharma', 'One Taste', and realising this nonduality is necessary especially for all Mahayana and bodhisattva practitioners:
- A Brief History of Everything, Ken Wilber
But most importantly still, is that we must be awakened to that reality
p.s The 'God' here refers to Dharma Nature/Buddha Nature. -
Many teachers generally agree that there are different classes of spiritual aspirants. Including the Buddha who himself taught in one sutra, the different kinds of sentient beings and how they may be led to awakening whether directly or indirectly.
But from my understanding and what I read, there are basically 3 kinds of spiritual aspirants. The most advanced realise the nondual reality as soon as they are told about its real nature. There are such people, we call them 'people with high capacity' or in Chinese, high 'gen1 qi4'. The 6th Zen Patriarch Hui Neng was such a person, he heard one verse of Diamond Sutra and attained awakening. Shi Fu also attained sudden awakening at a very young age at a near-death situation (when he was 12), without being taught. And even people like Eckhart Tolle (at age 29, awakened after a period of depression and sufferings) or Sri Ramana Maharshi (at age 16, awakened after a death-like situation) also attained a sort of sudden awakening without being taught or any prior practices, although we do not know their level of realisation. Eckhart Tolle seems to have deepened in terms of realisation in recent years. There are also people who received dharma transmission from Shi Fu and then attained awakening on the spot. These type of people only need someone to 'point out that reality' to them. Although there are such cases, it is not very common either. Many of them are bodhisattvas or practitioners in their past lives. Most people are of the second or third category which I will describe just next.
Those in the second class need to reflect on it for some time before the non-dual reality becomes firmly established within him. And those in the third category are less fortunate since they usually need many years of intensive spiritual practice to achieve the goal of awakening.
So what is important for most of us is to get acquinted with a Sangha, learn and listen to the dharma and develope these dharma qualities in us. And the seeds of awakening will gradually ripen when the conditions are there. -
won't it be reversible if they got it just like that? its like too simple to be true. is it the ultimate enlightenment?Originally posted by An Eternal Now:Many teachers generally agree that there are different classes of spiritual aspirants. Including the Buddha who himself taught in one sutra, the different kinds of sentient beings and how they may be led to awakening whether directly or indirectly.
But from my understanding and what I read, there are basically 3 kinds of spiritual aspirants. The most advanced realise the nondual reality as soon as they are told about its real nature. There are such people, we call them 'people with high capacity' or in Chinese, high 'gen1 qi4'. The 6th Zen Patriarch Hui Neng was such a person, he heard one verse of Diamond Sutra and attained awakening. Shi Fu also attained sudden awakening at a very young age at a near-death situation (when he was 12), without being taught. And even people like Eckhart Tolle (at age 29, awakened after a period of depression and sufferings) or Sri Ramana Maharshi (at age 16, awakened after a death-like situation) also attained a sort of sudden awakening without being taught or any prior practices, although we do not know their level of realisation. Eckhart Tolle seems to have deepened in terms of realisation in recent years. There are also people who received dharma transmission from Shi Fu and then attained awakening on the spot. These type of people only need someone to 'point out that reality' to them. Although there are such cases, it is not very common either. Many of them are bodhisattvas or practitioners in their past lives. Most people are of the second or third category which I will describe just next.
Those in the second class need to reflect on it for some time before the non-dual reality becomes firmly established within him. And those in the third category are less fortunate since they usually need many years of intensive spiritual practice to achieve the goal of awakening.
So what is important for most of us is to get acquinted with a Sangha, learn and listen to the dharma and develope these dharma qualities in us. And the seeds of awakening will gradually ripen when the conditions are there. -
Originally posted by Cenarious:
if ultimate enlightenment can be reversible, it wouldn't be the ultimate enlightenment already, right?... unless what the person realise is just potions of enlightenment, then it's reversible.
won't it be reversible if they got it just like that? its like too simple to be true. is it the ultimate enlightenment?
btw, we should differentiate 'fo xiu' (Buddhism base on knowledge) from "xiu fo"(Really learning to be like Buddha in terms of conduct/practice).
some ppl can talk very well in theory, citing from book/sutra, but there's no wisdom wan. ppl will also easily be misleaded...this are not enlightenment but like flower in a vase without root. Looks good on outside, but will wither in time. on the other hand, an Enlightened person can really explain things from the bodhi mind. the wisdom just flow from Buddhanature.
so as i heard from my master, to really write a commentry book on sutra and really have substance, one must at least be a 3rd stage arahat.
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It is directly, intuitively experiencing one's true nature and that realisation is irreverible. But even after so, there could be remaining fetters. So after such experience many people spend the next several years deepening their experience. Or in fact, the entire life and more in deepening their experience.Originally posted by Cenarious:won't it be reversible if they got it just like that? its like too simple to be true. is it the ultimate enlightenment? -
agreeOriginally posted by sinweiy:if ultimate enlightenment can be reversible, it wouldn't be the ultimate enlightenment already, right?... unless what the person realise is just potions of enlightenment, then it's reversible.
btw, we should differentiate 'fo xiu' (Buddhism base on knowledge) from "xiu fo"(Really learning to be like Buddha in terms of conduct/practice).
some ppl can talk very well in theory, citing from book/sutra, but there's no wisdom wan. ppl will also easily be misleaded...this are not enlightenment but like flower in a vase without root. Looks good on outside, but will wither in time. on the other hand, an Enlightened person can really explain things from the bodhi mind. the wisdom just flow from Buddhanature.
so as i heard from my master, to really write a commentry book on sutra and really have substance, one must at least be a 3rd stage arahat.
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i was reading another great article in chinese abt Han he Da Shou Yin. Very enlightening.
http://teacher.ccjh.tp.edu.tw/t316/%A6%F2%BE%C7%A4%E5%B3%B9/%F9%DA%AAe%A4j%A4%E2%A6L.htm
here are some extracts:
no thoughts is not telling us to stop thinking. it's just that when the thoughts come u just let it be. don't attached to the thoughts.
let our mind be like the air space, go beyond all discriminations and be able to tolerate anything. there's no prettiness or ulginess. within the great space, there's everything. u can build the tallest buliding, does it effect the air space? no. the plane can fly anywhere, the air space is not effected as well. in fact our True Mind is like that too. All the countless world are within the great space, and all the countless world are within our true mind. there's nowhere i am not. let's renouce all discriminations.
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