ORIGINAL MIND


a selection from a great article:
The Understanding of Mind in the Northern Line of Ch'an (Zen)
rinzai
Robert B. Zeuschner
Instructor in Philosophy at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Philosophy East and West, V. 28, No. 1 (January 1978)
pp. 69-79
© 1978 by University of Hawaii Press, Hawaii, USA

http://www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/HistoricalZen/Understanding_mind_in_NorthernChan.htm

All the teachings of Buddhism
Originally exist from [the pure] mind.
If you try to grasp mind by seeking outwardly
You are running away from your own father. [21]
To seek for Enlightenment, or Awakening, in the external realm of teachers. texts, scriptures, commentaries, or holy practices is to misunderstand the ground of Awakening--which is simply one's own original (in the sense of "fundamental") mind. Another of the five Upaaya texts states:
Awakening [from] false thinking, one understands body and mind, and one penetrates Fundamental Awakening (pen-chueh [r]'). Awakening [from] false thinking is Initial Awakening (shih-chueh [s]); penetrating [the source of] body and mind is Fundamental Awakening. Initial Awakening is the Buddha Way; Fundamental Awakening is the Buddha itself (fo-t'i [t]). [22]
False thinking is the activity of the defiled mind, which involves both the realm of conceptualization and attachment to concepts, and the realm of perception and attachment to what is perceived (the Six Thieves). When the defiled mind is active, the world too becomes defiled:
The eye sees [and there is] conceptualizing; thoughts arise and numerous concepts are born; there are divisions and barricades, and one does not understand. Accordingly, this is the defiled universe, the realm of the sentient being... [However] if the eye sees [and there is] conceptualizing and knowing, and [yet] one is free from thinking (li-nien[u1] ), then there are no barriers and divisions, and this is the pure universe; it is the realm of a Buddha. [23]

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