JM, You are very discursive this time. Anthony --- On Mon, 5/9/11, Jue Miao Jing Ming - 覺妙精明 <[email protected]> wrote:
From: Jue Miao Jing Ming - 覺妙精明 <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [Zen] Fwd: Re: [Zen Living] Supreme Vehicle To: [email protected] Date: Monday, 5 September, 2011, 11:50 PM Hello Siska, Excellent inner observation. Thank you. We say in our school, "let us not practice with our mind but with our heart." In order words, only when our mind is completely at rest, then compassion and wisdom rises from our heart, or spirit if you prefer. In the traditional Buddhist teaching, our mind is the seventh consciousness, and our subconsciousness is the eighth. We will be free only when we reach the ninth, Amala consciousness. Otherwise we are still being bombarded with our mind and subconsciousness. Any "judgment" of our notions, regardless of the final label is still functioning in the conscious domain and not in the spiritual domain. Let me know your comment. jm Learn the Basics of Chan Meditation... http://www.chan-meditation.org Chan in everyday life... http://www.chanliving.org To be enlightened in this life... http://www.heartchan.org To save our world... http://www.universal-oneness.org On 9/5/2011 2:43 AM, [email protected] wrote: Hi JM, Thanks for looking into this. > This is why we must step off the top of that hunded foot pole of emptiness > into the world of an awakened everyday. I believe distinction between the two is unnecessary. What is called awakened everyday is emptiness itself. I fully agree that we are subject to conventions and from time to time we need conventions. Unfortunately, identifying certain things as 'emptiness' or 'non-duality', while others as 'everyday world' or 'duality' is a duality view itself. > In truth, Two and One are in support of one another. Here it seems that Rev Harvey makes distinction between Two and One. Are they really different at all? > Are we present? Are we kind? Do we practice with a mindful heart? It has been a while since I began questioning this practice of questioning. I used to remind myself whether I was present, whether I have been kind today, whether I was mindful. At one point, I discovered that whatever answers I had for those questions are doubtful for words are ambiguous and I no longer know what being kind or mindful really means anymore beyond their conventional use. Siska From: Jue Miao Jing Ming - 覺妙精明 <[email protected]> Sender: [email protected] Date: Sun, 04 Sep 2011 10:09:48 -0700 To: <[email protected]> ReplyTo: [email protected] Subject: [Zen] Fwd: Re: [Zen Living] Supreme Vehicle Hello Siska, Below is a reply from Rev. Harvey in terminologies of Zen. Perhaps it will clarify some of the questions in your mind? jm -------- Original Message -------- Aha, Sensei, Indeed. It is transformation instead of elimination. The key of Chan practice lies in the way of "challenging & teaching & awaken" without ourselves. Too often we impose "our practice" onto others. In such case, we still are attached to dharma. I just loved your English. So much more depth in every word. As always, I found one new words I needed to look up from dictionary. Thank you for your sharing. jm On 9/4/2011 6:01 AM, Harvey Daiho Hilbert wrote: With respect to all, Good Morning JMJM, Thank you for the correction as regards your Order's hierarchy, although I will continue to see you as a Master. It is true that to see oneself as one with everything, there is a danger we will fall into a sort of quietism. This is why we must step off the top of that hunded foot pole of emptiness into the world of an awakened everyday. In Zen we step back from that pole in order to work for the freedom of all beings. We live in a world of two truths, the Universe is One and the Universe is not one. Realizing the Vast Impermenance of all things does not negate all things. Engaged practice, then, is a practice of going out into the world of the relative with an Absolute Mind. How we walk, talk, eat, and touch become teachers to those around us. Are we present? Are we kind? Do we practice with a mindful heart? These are profound, but beginning beginning steps, steps of a first order. A second order is more foundational. We practice to address the conditions within which duality is permitted to emerge. Notions of social stratification, distributive justice, and prejudice must be addressed directly, challenged, and transformed. I say transformed rather than eliminated because these causes of duality function for purposes that are usually righteous. The purposes of stratifacation, unequal distribution of goods and services, and prejudice often have more to do with fear and the consequent presumed need for self preservation than anything about the targets of these efforts. The goal may be righteous, but the method is problematic. When people have a "self" and fear the loss of things that support that "self" they will do all manner of things to protect it. So, our practice (for ourselves, as well as for others) is to cut through the delusion of a self, show there is no need to protect a nonexistant self, and find ways to support such a transformative process. Our methods include challenging, teaching, and supporting people as they are in the everyday world. Bearing witness for peace, and against hunger and violence are beginning steps, but key steps. In truth, Two and One are in support of one another. When we can live with such an open eye, we know we have nothing to fear. Without fear, the bodhisattva is free to engage the universe. Be well Rev. Daiho Hilbert, abbot OCMZ From: Jue Miao Jing Ming - 覺妙精明 <[email protected]> To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected] Sent: Saturday, September 3, 2011 11:08 AM Subject: [Zen Living] Supreme Vehicle Good morning Sensei, Thank you so much for taking the time to respond. I am just a practitioner of Chan and not a master. A master in our school means someone who is enlightened and has received "Buddha Heart Imprint", while I have neither. Since Zen does recognize the Mahayana practice, then please let me share some of the discussions we had recently in our school.... As we know, Hinayana is often called the Small Vehicle and Mahayana is the Great Vehicle. And in China, the Chan is called the Supreme Vehicle. It means that Chan could free everyone. It is true, when others are enlightened, we are enlightened. The danger of this realization is the rationalization that we only need to work on ourselves. If so, then we are only practicing Hinayana. We did not "do" the circular track of Chan. The Mahayana practice is a practice, only when we leave our lotus and step into the mud, could we than detach ourselves from the limitation of our practice and our dharma. In other words, as we focus on the difficulty in freeing others, could we then realize how limited we are in wisdom and energy in resolving their karmic hindrance. Only then we could be motivated to continuously surpassing our habitual practice, form and formless. In turn to realize that "Dharma is not dharma. No dharma is dharma." Then we would know dharma is in every encounter. It is up to us to be one with it. Only then we are liberated from the rationalization of our mind and awaken to the fact that the One of Chan is the ALL. This realization occurs when we journey midway into the freeing of each one, as a Supreme Vehicle. Too often we quit by rationalizing to ourselves that this practice is not for everyone. Or the time is not right, or whatever excuses we place upon our practice. If so, we have trapped ourselves into believing that our current practice is the only path. The practice of Supreme Vehicle is every practice in each moment, in each encounter, without self, without other, without dharma, without form, without notion, etc. To free all beings is not to impose "our" practice upon them, but rather let them awaken from within. The only way we could accomplish that is to speak in their language in their mindset and help them to resolve whatever there needs to be resolve in resources, mindset or life force. In other words, we needed to be them and undertake their karma. Thus the mud is the lotus and lotus is the mud and they both grow in tandem. To phrase it in beautiful labels, Mahayana is the journey for Bodhisattva, Supreme Vehicle is the journey for Buddha, who is the one and all and us and everyone. Thank you all for your attention, JMJM Head Teacher Order Of Chan Learn the Basics of Chan Meditation... http://www.chan-meditation.org Chan in everyday life... http://www.chanliving.org To be enlightened in this life... http://www.heartchan.org To save our world... http://www.universal-oneness.org On 9/1/2011 9:49 PM, Harvey Daiho Hilbert wrote: With palms together, Good Evening Everyone, On the Zen Living list, Ch’an Master Jue Miao Jing Ming , asked me a question the other day. “Dear Sensei, Do you consider Zen a Mahayana practice? If so, what does Mahayana actually do?” While Zen is within the Mahayana tradition, it is not a Mahayana practice as I understand it. Student Rev. Shoji and I were discussing this question today and Rev. Shoji brought up an interesting distinction. He argued that Mahayana Buddhists aim at the Bodhisattva ideal to free all beings before they, themselves, enter nirvana. He points out that from a Zen point of view, self and other are one, therefore there is no one, but oneself, to free. Zen Master Seung Sahn argues in his Compass, that both Theravadan and Mahayane traditions have “roads,” but that Zen has not only no road, but no map, as well. The practice is practice realization as one. Path and destination are not two. These beg the question, however, “What does Mahayana actually do?” Mahayana does nothing. Mahayana is just a word. And we can see from the question that such things as words and concepts can create a hindrance. We could ask a better question, “What is Mahayana practice and what does it do?” The aim of the practice is to free beings, but how? Again, Master Sahn offers the Six Paramitas as “practice guides.” They are rather like the manifest value in the nexus between idea and behavior, rather like the term “Quality” as used in Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.” A Mahayana practitioner practices to make manifest the six aspects of our true nature in the hope that to do so will free suffering beings. A Zen practitioner, however realizes practice and life are one, that everything is already free, perfect as it is, but that we jail ourselves with our thoughts. A Zen practitioner notices and ceases all grasping: no attachment to ideas, desires, things, feelings, etc. A Zen practitioner is free and easy in the everyday world. His mind is free and his heart limitless. He recognizes all beings are likewise like this. Be well. Rev. Daiho Hilbert, abbot OCMZ
