Is attachment to enlightenment the final hurdle?

"Don’t waste time in arguments and discussion,
attempting to grasp the ungraspable."


"To live in this Realization
is to not worry about perfection or non-perfection."


Hsin Hsin Ming - Verses on the perfect mind

"even an attachment to enlightenment is to go astray.
Just let things be in their own way as they are,"


"Be in harmony with the Way
and you will be free of disturbances.
Tied by your thoughts, you lose the truth,"


Enlightenment is not a thing that can be had but once recognised becomes a thing we would always love to maintain. This of course is as as tied to things as any other state so is failure.

"Indeed, to accept them fully
is identical with true Enlightenment.
The wise attaches to no goals,
but the foolish fetter themselves."


Here this Zen poem echoes the wisdom of the Tao (well summed up in a number of passages of the Ch'ing Ching Ching and in nearly all Taoist writings) in saying that it is the movement that we have to be in touch with, to embrace it all with no such distinctions as wanting one state or another.

Tied permanently to a state you feel to be enlightened is as much bondage and death as to be tied to any other thing.

"Using mind to stir up the mind
is the original mistake."


"Peaceful and troubled derive from thinking;
Enlightenment has no likes or dislikes."

~~~

Verses on the perfect mind is a lovely work - you can download it in full here. Hsin Hsin Ming.

"Words! Words!
The Way is beyond language,
Words never could, can not now, and never will describe the Way."

3 comments:

  1. Good post. I never thought about this; Be even detached from Enlightenment! Excellent.

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  2. Yes! Great depth and insight.

    I love the paradoxical nature of this wisdom.

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