Onibaba Zen: True Mind & False Mind

Sunday, August 27, 2017

True Mind & False Mind

It is hard to give a simple definition of the distinction between true and false. It is a mistake to say the true mind and the false mind are the same, and yet it is also mistaken to say they are different.

Suppose you press your eyeball with your finger, causing yourself to see a doubled image, such as a second moon beside the real moon. Now this second moon is only seen because of the pressure of the finger on your eye; there isn't really any second moon beside the real moon.

This does not mean, however, that if you don't want to be seeing a second moon, you should get rid of the false moon and see the real moon. If you simply remove the finger pressing your eyeball, there is no other moon beside the original moon. If you try to get rid of the second moon without removing the finger from your eye, you will never succeed. There are some people who think there is no real moon apart from this second moon, so they are in love with it. That is also a big mistake.

Those who do not put pressure on their eyeballs do not see a second moon to begin with; how could there be any debate about whether or not to get rid of the second moon? So the issue of the sameness or difference of the true and false mind arises because of pressing the eye of the fundamental with the finger of confusion.

-Zen Master Muso, Dream Conversations

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"Put Strength Into It, Abandon Conceit"

This page is a direct, yet still veiled, transmission of the Way. Zen is just the "ordinary" and straightfoward mind of no-thought, not the calculating mind that refuses to put forth effort, shies from heartbreak, and resists all transformation.

If you've landed on this page and you are reading this note, you are probably interested in Zen's moon-clear Realization (Kensho, Wu/Satori -- maybe if you're lucky even Daigo).

How can I help you? Maybe I can't! That won't stop me from doing my best. How can I help it? There is nothing willful about the instantaneousness of the moon shining everywhere, getting reflected everywhere. Cup water in your hands and there it is! Wonderful. "Intoxicated by moonlight." "A hammer striking the Void -- before and after, the mysterious sounds going everywhere."

What do you want Zen Realization for anyway? Don't you know that Master Yunmen compared the Buddha to a "dried shit stick?" In any case, it's so simple nobody will ever recognize that you "have" it, and they won't be able to envy you any more than you envy a dusty tramp sitting by the road eating a raw turnip.

Still, there are some who want to penetrate right through to the Mind-Essence. Maybe you've already had a small glimpse of your essential nature, like the moon gliding out briefly from behind clustering dark clouds. That would be extremely helpful.

"Satori" in the Japanese kanji breaks down into the radicals "I" and "Mind." It is the direct experience of the true mind. You ask, How will I know when I've had it? I answer: You'll know. Is the hair standing up on the back of your neck yet?

The "Mind-to-Mind" transmission of Zen is always eccentric, idiosyncratic. It can even be hazardous to your social relationships by making you seem crazy. Do you still want the Mind-Seal?

For more Great Zen see: DSZ.

"Being is what is visible, and Non-Being is the vessel. That which manifests Being is Non-Being. A crystal, for example, is clear and transparent in essence, and though its essential voidness has nothing to do with either colors or patterns it can give birth to both fire and water. How is it that both fire and water, which have different natures, can be produced from a colorless, empty essence?" -Yugaku shudo fukensho, Zeami.