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

The Chan attitude requires that we abandon our prideful agendas, that we work for the
sake of the work and not for the sense of accomplishment. Where there is pride there can be
no loving, natural attitude. Let no one believe that just because he can't do anything worth
being proud of he will easily succeed in being humble. Humility ought to be - but isn't - easy
to achieve. Consider the following Chan parable:
Two monks met by the river's edge. As they looked at the view of the other side, one
said, "My master can send his mind wherever he wants it to go. Though he is a hundred
miles from here, he could meditate, find me, and paint this view exactly as I'm seeing it now.
Can your master do anything so great?" he asked. The other monk nodded. "Greater," he
said. "My master can eat when he is hungry and sleep when he is tired."
Another attitudinal problem we encounter is the studied irreverence of persons who
reject Judaism, Christianity, Islam or Hinduism and think that because Buddhists do not (or at
least should not) worry about creation gods, they have no God at all to consider.
For some strange reason atheists are attracted to Buddhism. Not inclined to reach
enlightenment in foxholes, they gravitate to Buddhism, assume our patented Tranquil Pose,
and sneer nonviolently at all the non-atheists in all those other non-atheistic religions. Such
persons are usually appalled when they discover Buddhists bowing before statues or, worse,
kneeling in prayer before them. There is no way to reassure them that the Buddha who is
being bowed to is the Buddha within the one who bows. According to their rules, all
evidence of supplication, reverence, and worship of the divine must be excised from the
liturgical body.
Likewise, they refuse to allow the word God ever to apply to the Buddha Nature and
can grow visibly pale when watching the word extrude itself from a Buddhist's mouth.
Westerners, however, grow up using the term and unless we can comfortably say when
witnessing a sneeze, "Original Face bless you," or when striking a thumb with a hammer,
"Buddha Nature damn it!" we ought not to strike the word God from our lexicons. And if we
can comfortably bless or curse using the name of God, we certainly ought to be able to use
the term for academic or religious purposes. In fact, most of what Christians mean when they
say God is meant by Buddhists when they say Buddha Nature or by Daoists when they say
Dao.
The Chan attitude is one of respect for other religions. Those of us who select Chan
Buddhism do so because it offers a path which suits our particular needs. Most of us reject
religious ga-ga, supernatural hocus pocus, hellfire and brimstone, star-ordained destinies,
reincarnated `channels' and all the other questionable tenets of popular faiths which include,
of course, many varieties of Buddhism.
This does not mean that because we reject certain forms of worship we can reject the
worshippers. Sri Ramakrishna, the great Indian saint of modern Vedanta, was once asked to
comment upon the licentiousness of certain `left-handed' tantric worshippers. Though the
CHAPTER 17 RIGHT MINDFULNESS
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