Haung Po: No realization

The Reading:

"...there is no pious practicing and no action of realizing ...for this state of being admits no degrees."

Huang Po

Discussion:

People talk about practice and progress, about seniority, about learning and understanding and "getting it."

None of this has anything to do with Zen.

I don't know what to tell them.

Oh.

Not Zen.

Huang Po: Conceptual Thought

The Reading:

If you students of the Way do not awake to this Mind substance, you will overlay Mind with conceptual thought, you will see the Buddha outside yourselves, and you will remain attached to forms, pious practices and so on, all of which are harmful and not at all the way to supreme knowledge.


Discussion:

See?  Whatever you say is not supreme knowledge.

Introduction to Huang Po by Pei Hsiu

The Reading:

Holding in esteem only the intuitive method of the Highest Vehicle, which cannot be communicated in words, he taught nothing but the doctrine of the One Mind; holding that there is nothing else to teach, in that both mind and substance are void and that the chain of causation is motionless.  Mind is like the sun hourneying through the sky and emitting glorious light uncontaminated by the finest particle of dust.  To those who have realized the nature of Reality, there is nothing old or new, and conceptions of shallowness and depth are meaningless.  Those who speak of it do not attempt to explain it, establish no sects and open no doors or windows.  That which is before you is it.  Begin to reason about it and you will at once fall into error.  

Discussion:

The chain of causation is motionless.  What do you think freedom is?

Huang Po: No Study

The Reading:

If you students of the Way wish to become Buddhas, you need study no doctrines whatever, but learn only how to avoid seeking for and attaching yourselves to anything.


Discussion:

No seeking.  No attachment.  No questions.