Saturday, August 11, 2012

&

& the deluded biological robot said:
Awareness,
this mysterious quality
of the brain
which is going to die when "I" do.

& the Buddha said,
Who is this "I,"
where can you find "him" or "her"
& when, pray tell,
is this "I" born
or going to die?

Reality is appearing right now
in all your senses!
Look at it clearly!

Monday, August 6, 2012

Direct Entry with a Sharp Chopper


Mu Shin Do Zen is a school for "direct entry [into vivid true Reality] with a sharp chopper."

Zen is the "Mind-Dharma." It is not transmitted from master to student -- how could Great Mind be transmitted? It's the unborn medium of everything already! However, Master and student recognize each other as sharing the same all illuminating Mind-nature. Yowza!

"Outside Mind there are no dharmas."

This is Kyoge Betsuden -- like pure water being poured into pure water. It's what occurred between Gotama and Mahakasyapa when Gotama held up the Flower for the assembly on Eagle Peak. In this instance, the gesture of holding up the flower was the "sharp chopper" that enabled Mahakasyapa to enter suddenly and completely into the formless form of the energetic and always vivid True Reality.

Friday, August 3, 2012

The Wasp and the Leaky Nest

The blind priest who plays the biwa said:
You have lived before
and you will live again
until you see that life is dream,
pure and empty illusion,
created by the thought of "I"
and "not-I," and "this is mine"
and "this is not mine."
This rising here, that rises there.
This ceasing here, that ceases there.
Everything is dependent
on everything else,
therefore all is empty.
All compounded things
are transitory, and given time
will fall apart. Where, then,
in any of this can there be
an "I" or a "mine"?

All is hollow like bamboo,
a body pervaded by space,
and mind is infinite space, too.

You must know that at any instant
death could come --
a sword could cut you down,
a bolt of lightning could strike you,
you could burn up in a fire
or fall off a thousand foot cliff.
Would this be the end?
No. This consciousness of "I" and "mine"
would pass into another body
by the energy of karma,
and another person would arise
growing the womb of another woman,
suffering from all the same delusions --
and so on and so forth
until the day of your Enlightenment
when you realize infinity
in a hair raising instant
and so become a Buddha.
Upon which you know
there was never anything to realize --
Naked Awareness was never lost,
nor did it ever delude itself for a moment.

Shed it! Shed the shadow puppet play now!
Sentient beings must help themselves!
Nobody else can do It for you!

*

Shakyamuni then declared:
having vanquished Ego-consciousness,
I am now perfectly Enlightened.
for I have shed the false sense
of "I" and "mine"
that obscured this pure Awareness
since long before my birth as Gotama.
I have overcome that
to which I foolishly succumbed
and which made me suffer
in countless life after life
as this Consciousness moved
in a dream, in a fantastic illusion,
from one body to another,
each time mistaking itself
for that body, for those thoughts.
Each time getting drawn into conflicts,
and each time suffering endless grief
from its own negative emotions --
while always stupidly blaming others,
never accepting a shred of responsibility
until I awakened love
and devotion --
throwing myself into a hermit's fire,
giving my flesh to a mother tiger,
practicing equanimity as a king
cut me into pieces
in the great forest --
to the accompaniment of the cries
and groans of his weeping wives.
So. The previous Buddha's prophecy
heard in a long ago kingdom
in a half-forgotten life
has now come to be.
I am Awake, nakedly.
I have walked the Great Way.
And I have attained cessation.
Our revels are now ended;
the play is finished.
No more ominous pageants.
Toss out the moth-eaten god and demon masks!
No more suffering from dreams,
clutched in the talons of a delusion.
"The wasp has flown its leaky nest."

The contemplative life is done. All over.
Gone beyond, beyond, totally beyond! Bodhi Svaha!