seventh world of chan buddhism - Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun

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CHAPTER 17 RIGHT MINDFULNESS "If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. "Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." - St. Paul First Letter to the Corinthians, 13:1-7. (New American Standard Bible.) "Men of Dao! The Way of Buddhism is never phony or pretentious. It consists in doing ordinary things in a simple, natural way: shitting, pissing, dressing, eating, sleeping when you're tired. Fools laugh at me for saying this. The wise understand." - Lin Ji (Rinzai) THE SEVENTH STEP ON THE PATH: CULTIVATING THE CHAN ATTITUDE On the surface, the assertions of St. Paul and Chan master Lin Ji would seem to reflect widely different attitudes; but closer inspection will reveal that while they are different stylistically, they are attitudinally identical. The simple, natural way of Lin Ji is the unconditional love which St. Paul describes. Hypocrisy and egotism are clearly abhorrent to both men. But of course, as if to illustrate the kind of artificiality that Lin Ji was decrying when he offered his famous description of the Way, the words shitting and pissing are frequently CHAPTER 17 RIGHT MINDFULNESS S EVENTH W ORLD O F C HAN B UDDHISM 172
sanitized in translation and appear as "going to the stool," "making water," and so on. Lin Ji wouldn't have appreciated it. And St. Paul's love is translated in the old King James version of the Bible as charity. Charity also means love, but to us it more commonly refers to alms giving and, this being the planet earth, Paul's beautiful words are often exploited by fund raisers whenever they try to squeeze money out of people. "`Faith, hope, charity;'" they quote the chapter's final line, "`but the greatest of these is charity.' How much may we expect from you?" St. Paul wouldn't have appreciated it. While no one has ever accused the Apostle Paul of being sentimental, his eloquence does occasionally arouse the kind of easy inspiration that Lin Ji feared and detested. Lin Ji knew that cheaply purchased goodness is goodness cheaply sold. His jolting language was designed precisely to obviate sentimentality. When love and goodness are the subject of a religious utterance, we can expect the spirit to be moved. Seldom, however, is it moved profoundly; and superficial movement is usually worse than no movement at all. Too often the reader responds to an uplifting passage with an easy rush of ardor, a warm glow; and, like heated air in a balloon, the rising expectation of pious change carries him aloft. Yes, he will work to correct each and every one of his 108 faults! Yes, he will dedicate his life to saving the world's 4 billion sentient beings! Then, within a matter of hours, the flames of universal love and self-reform die out. He plummets back into his old ruts. Now, however, he can identify himself as one of religion's aviators. He can daydream about his moment of glory for months. A Chan man is a veteran of change and has the scars to prove it. He knows that religiosity is not a substitute for combat. Folks who drip with sentimental fervor because they have survived the reading of a poem are not in anybody's army. The proper Chan attitude, then, might be said to consist in `cutting the crap,' of making no public display of piety, of saving our devotion for those times when we are alone and can properly express it; in not going out of our way to be vulgar on one hand but, on the other, in not trying to affect those refined sensibilities which suggest that we believe shitting and pissing to be quaint customs of the proletariat we once read about in Daddy's library. Chan is an extremely tough discipline. We have to turn ourselves inside-out and lay bare to a dissecting scalpel our most private thoughts and acts. People who are too squeamish or too elegant to use the language of the common man really don't have the guts for Chan. Lin Ji would have made short work of them. And if we cease trying to impress others with our lofty status, we might cease acting like godlike puppeteers, looking down at people and manipulating them. If we join humanity instead of holding ourselves above it, we can touch the universal current. Paul's unconditional love can flow through us as Lin Ji's Dao. CHAPTER 17 RIGHT MINDFULNESS S EVENTH W ORLD O F C HAN B UDDHISM 173
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THE SEVENTH WORLD OF CHAN BUDDHISM
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Table of Contents PART I: ORIGINS C
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As their population increased, so d
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from the womb of their Holy Mother
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fade quickly in early morning body-
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doctrine of Karma meant nothing les
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The other method of salvation, the
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As H.G. Wells reconstructs Siddarth
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CHAPTER 2 CHINA How wonderful! How
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in its concealed vitality, a new mo
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favor. (Unhappily, as we shall see,
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demand, or, perhaps, respectfully r
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demonstrated divine affection; and
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Believing that human nature was inh
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after a specific individual can, wh
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The Confucians also mocked the old
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Preferring to be absolutely certain
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male, earth and sky, dark and light
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As farmers, they of course studied
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emember. How much credence can we a
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Again, as there is no willful, exte
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CHAPTER 4 ORIGINS OF THE TWO MAIN S
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ecstatic beggars ambling through th
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As monasteries and shrines competed
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Though he could see Infinity in a s
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When, however, the fellow failed to
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was necessary, went back to South C
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intelligentsia sought refuge in Con
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She must have paid a fortune for it
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Even though Titans are noticeably h
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with the cosmos - encounters which
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The name Devil comes from the wretc
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challenge. To live in the Six World
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CHAPTER 6 THE GAP BETWEEN THE SIX W
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himself as being under siege from e
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advise him to seek sanctuary in a m
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CHAPTER 7 A WORKING MODEL OF THE PS
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that because something conforms to
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and protect them, they very likely
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follow a prescribed moral code that
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survival value. With this friend th
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Even today, a man will spend consid
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CROSS-SECTION: MODEL OF PSYCHE The
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in which we simply live out the lif
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pride, anger, security, jealousy, a
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honest, loving, witty, and good hum
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feel if we discover that our trust
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CHAPTER 9 HIGH PRICE OF DESIRE It s
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including veterans' organizations)
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the legend, "Even when you're baaaa
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Mr. Doe tells himself that he does
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Since his ex-wife and kids live in
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court press.) His new attachments w
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When evaluating dreams we must reca
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PART III: PRACTICE CHAPTER 10 FIRST
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Again, meditation requires that the
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Some people find it easier to count
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Zen is a branch of the Mahayana, an
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FIRST STEP ON THE EIGHTFOLD PATH CH
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Now, the question is this: Which ba
Page 121 and 122: It is necessary to appreciate the d
Page 123 and 124: punishment in the sense of physical
Page 125 and 126: through his troubles. It's another
Page 127 and 128: And if a single confession of past
Page 129 and 130: At the turn of the century, a famou
Page 131 and 132: and death' the moment we enter Nirv
Page 133 and 134: Insofar as these events concern our
Page 135 and 136: adiant, humble, compassionate, joyf
Page 137 and 138: Usually our love-affairs with thing
Page 139 and 140: The chronic annoyance of trivialiti
Page 141 and 142: After Dad has sympathized with Sonn
Page 143 and 144: conviction, "The friend of my frien
Page 145 and 146: Chan requires us not only to analyz
Page 147 and 148: Of all the projections one individu
Page 149 and 150: ego is so important." The layman, l
Page 151 and 152: Of greater importance to the person
Page 153 and 154: Buddhists because it is virtually i
Page 155 and 156: 1. Non-killing 2. Non-stealing 3. N
Page 157 and 158: Salesmen frequently have difficulty
Page 159 and 160: would not be able to perform such g
Page 161 and 162: CHAPTER 15 RIGHT LIVELIHOOD "The pr
Page 163 and 164: killing of animals being unambiguou
Page 165 and 166: SIXTH STEP ON THE PATH CHAPTER 16 R
Page 167 and 168: What if we don't have a whole house
Page 169 and 170: When we finally decide to get in sh
Page 171: By Right Effort we mean that we cre
Page 175 and 176: men and women involved would have q
Page 177 and 178: the gentle monk came outside and sa
Page 179 and 180: There is another revolving sensatio
Page 181 and 182: length of time he'll require. He pe
Page 183 and 184: Eventually he realizes that he is b
Page 185 and 186: "Are there any teachings which go b
Page 187 and 188: The rules which govern eating defy
Page 189 and 190: CHAPTER 19 RIGHT MEDITATION EIGHTH
Page 191 and 192: cannot describe either the rush of
Page 193 and 194: The hands may either be held high a
Page 195 and 196: for as long as possible - the durat
Page 197 and 198: OTHER FORMS OF MEDITATION The word
Page 199 and 200: Pay attention to one clock only. As
Page 201 and 202: volume and harmony until it seemed
Page 203 and 204: Fasting, never a gentle exercise, c
Page 205 and 206: So far, so good. The characters and
Page 207 and 208: What type of prayer is permissible?
Page 209: CONCLUSION I remember once being ta
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