• There, in this mind that is breathing right now,
  There lies Enlightenment. Nowhere else.
  Nothing is missing. Nothing is lost. Nothing is found.
  There is no illusion, and no attainment.

• About Wu (Mu): I like to think it’s the answer of the dog. If you asked a dog, “Does a dog have Buddha nature or not?”, you’d get a well rounded Wu(f) : “What do you think?”

• After a first investigation of Gateless Gate Case #1 (Chao-Chou’s dog or “Mu”), I wanted to restart my readings of Chan/Zen more or less in order, to understand the evolution of their Dharma. BodhiDharma, Huang-Po, Hui-neng. I wanted to understand the Zen understanding of Buddha Nature. I hope to be able to compile the notes and quotes here. I switched to Gateless Gate Case #2.

“My daily affairs are quite ordinary;
But I’m in total harmony with them.
I don’t hold on to anything, don’t reject anything;
Nowhere an obstacle or conflict.
Who cares about wealth and honor?
Even the poorest thing shines.
My miraculous power and spiritual activity:
Drawing water and carrying wood.”
Source: [unsure], [Layman Pang]

“No beings to liberate” feels like a coin lost in the river. Once the mind is liberated, that coin, “beings”, will be found again.

I think I know what “no beings to liberate” means. Yet, I have no idea what “beings to liberate” means.

On one side, I accept my limitation. I cannot agree, say “yes”. On the other side, I don’t see my limitation. I cannot disagree, say “no”.

Mu

A comparative table based on reading H. Dumoulin, “Zen Enlightenment”, pp 44-52.

Edit on Mar 9, 2021: This is the actual first post of this website. All previous posts were taken from my personal notes on paper, and labelled with their original date.

Bhikkhu Bodhi, Systematic Study of the Majjhima Nikāya, episode III.3 on MN 41, comments on buddhist teachers interpreting “being reborn” (in hell) as simply meaning “mental states” (in this life, not actual rebirth). He points out the stock phrase used every time rebirth is mentioned in the Theravada Canon: “on the dissolution of the body, after death”. Clearly, the Buddha is talking about rebirth, not psychology. This is a modernist rewrite.

MN 57, Kukkuravatika Sutta (the dog duty ascetic) relates karma, transmigration and sankhara. In particular paragraph 8 (below). B. Bodhi relates the sankhara both verb and noun to the one from the paticcasamuppada.

Idha, puṇṇa, ekacco sabyābajjhaṃ kāyasaṅkhāraṃ abhisaṅkharoti, sabyābajjhaṃ vacīsaṅkhāraṃ abhisaṅkharoti, sabyābajjhaṃ manosaṅkhāraṃ abhisaṅkharoti. So sabyābajjhaṃ kāyasaṅkhāraṃ abhisaṅkharitvā, sabyābajjhaṃ vacīsaṅkhāraṃ abhisaṅkharitvā, sabyābajjhaṃ manosaṅkhāraṃ abhisaṅkharitvā, sabyābajjhaṃ lokaṃ upapajjati. Tamenaṃ sabyābajjhaṃ lokaṃ upapannaṃ samānaṃ sabyābajjhā phassā phusanti. So sabyābajjhehi phassehi phuṭṭho samāno sabyābajjhaṃ vedanaṃ vedeti ekantadukkhaṃ, seyyathāpi sattā nerayikā. Iti kho, puṇṇa, bhūtā bhūtassa upapatti hoti; yaṃ karoti tena upapajjati, upapannamenaṃ phassā phusanti. Evampāhaṃ, puṇṇa, ‘kammadāyādā sattā’ti vadāmi. Idaṃ vuccati, puṇṇa, kammaṃ kaṇhaṃ kaṇhavipākaṃ

Here, Puṇṇa, someone develops the dog-duty fully and uninterruptedly; he develops the dog-habit fully and uninterruptedly; he develops the dog-mind fully and uninterruptedly; he develops dog-behaviour fully and uninterruptedly. Having done so, on the dissolution of the body, after death, he reappears in the company of dogs. But if he has such a view as this: ‘By this virtue or observance or asceticism or holy life I shall become a great god or some lesser god,’ that is wrong view in his case. Now there are two destinations for one with wrong view, I say: hell or the animal realm. So, Puṇṇa, if his dog-duty succeeds, it will lead him to the company of dogs; if it fails, it will lead him to hell.

Just finished Pierre Monat’s L’Histoire de la Bible (The History of the Bible).

Confirms that what we consider solid - “The Tradition” - is absolutely not. It is not at the origin, and by the way there’s no origin. It becomes solid with the centuries, because we solidify what we cling to. What we believe to be solid becomes solid. But this solid object, after this solidification process, has nothing to do with what origin it thinks it represents. Its fondations are liquid.

Reading “Tibet: a History” by Sam Van Schaik. I am afraid the last bit of consideration I had for lamaism is fading away.

Definition from the suttas.

• The Tulku system is problematic in many ways. One way to point it out is to observe very objectively how all the Lama incarnate are… men. What a coincidence.

• Reading Jack Kornfield’s After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, a collection of accounts from meditators telling their experiences. I wonder if we should hear those accounts with a grain of salt. We know how to write pretty words about our experiences. I could see myself producing a deep and flowery account of my moments in meditation that could read as extraordinary, when all of it was just really ordinary. Who knows?

This sutta is typical of upaya, the Buddha teaching to each individual depending on their needs and capabilities. So who is the buddha teaching to? What do they need? What are their capabilities? [AN 3.65]

The mind is always practicing.

Not just when we do meditation, but always.

When we are not mindful, it is practicing dukkha.

But we can choose to practice awareness instead.

It’s like for workout. Everyday we practice sport. Walking, sitting, running for the bus. This is a sport practice, obviously less beneficial than actually going to the gym (arguably), but any way you look at it, it’s a practice of movement with your body. Only, we haven’t made a conscious choice to practice it, we just do.

Anatta - “there is no self”, or “self is non-self”. Then what is free will? How can we be responsible for our actions?

Free will is an illusion because there is no basis for a will to apply, there is no agent.

Self is like the spin of a gyroscope, it has a drive of its own but this drive is not a thing in itself, it is conditioned, and is bound to the nature of the gyroscope. Self is conditioned by the twirl of sankhara.

The sutta questions the notion of “true self”, by reviewing each of the five kkhandas (aggregates) and pointing out how little control one has over this so-called true self, eventually concluding there is no such thing.