"If you want to abandon the unreal and turn to the real, sit steadily and gaze at a wall. Self and other, ordinary people and enlightened ones, are one and the same. Sit firmly without moving, no longer following spoken instructions. In this you are identical with the hidden form of the true principle, a stillness without name." Bodhidharma, Two entrances and Four practices. *
"Ordinary people and enlightened ones, are one and the same." (not remotely hard to accept, naturally true)
"In this you are identical with the hidden form of the true principle, a stillness without name." (BOOM!)
Clearly the swirl of what was, what is, and what will be, are precisely "this", as what else?
Naturally, the swirl appearing here, [this meness] can't be anything other. As is anything seen, not seen, known or not known.
Statements have sent me over the edge before and into a satori-like place from where I have naturally wobbled back. Such visits to the other side have kept me checking back for more, finding such statements in books or falling out of my own head when walking, sitting or whatever, that too nudge or throw me over to the other side. Only the mind brought me back each time.
This statement did not send me over the edge, it nudged me so that I found myself perfectly balanced on it, like a flywheel spinning so fast that it could not fall one way or the other and ran on the edge in a line so sure it was beyond description!
The certainty and uniquely interesting difference here is that, yes, you can be thrown towards, near to, or over the edge many times by just the right words, or events, and the mind will pull you back with its doubts, habits and mischief. Here though it was not just the statement sending me perfectly to the balance, but that I knew, certainly, that the mind would never get me back, it was beaten, it didn't try, and while I played with the idea, only smiles returned.
The mind can't get me back and it knows it. The state is firm as the argument is so precise. The knowing far beyond description.
Words are inadequate to describe, so I'm not expecting you to get my point, but I'll ramble on a bit.
Starting with entry level Buddhism or Taoism, let's appreciate a mountain. Begin with a flat land and pile up some rock. Great, a mountain. Start again with flat land and this time carve two big valleys into the land. A mountain emerges between them. So both times we got a mountain AND valley, just first time we may have missed the negative space required to have a mountain. Form and space are equally required. Form cannot be without space, space cannot be without form. Extremes are not possible. If something was entirely something but not absent of anything else, it couldn't exist. Short needs long, happy needs sad.
So it is not to be entirely anything, like enlightened, or to be entirely free of anything, like imperfection. It's not to have stillness of mind and live in a cave. Your naturally active mind only exists in harmony with the pure still mind. Wanting a still mind is an active mind at play. An active mind is a perfect mind with stillness perfectly in place.
I've played with such thoughts as I'm sure you have too, and when a great master writes a phrase or poem that beautifully states such a thing, it can throw us over into satori, for a while.
Consider though, the nameless, descriptionless, ????ness that must be. That simply must be. This non thing that we can't name, describe or know by knowing. Just as the mountain is the valley, and you are the swirl of events flowing through right now, you're undeniably this ????ness. You were this before birth, will be it when dead, undenibly must be it now. What more convincing does the mind need to sit on the edge and be unable to reason a way back?
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*It's only right that I share the book where I found this Bodhidharma quote, it is, The Spirit of Zen by Sam van Schaik. Great reading.
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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao
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