In Chinese Zen and Tibetan Buddhism the teaching of the nature of Mind is the alpha and the omega. The real focus of these traditions is upon Mind—everything else is like frosting on the cake. Although the frosting may seem attractive there is no real substance to it. Those who are attracted to the frosting naturally have a karmic affinity with it, but they need to practice on setting this aside. Mind is all that counts.
To know Mind directly, meeting it face to face, will require of us a thorough understanding of the difference between the finger pointing to the moon and the moon itself which, I hasten to add, is more analogous to a finger pointing to something we cannot yet see being, at the same time, yelled at by a crazy Zen master!
We should begin my saying that by the finger we mean words. The Buddha taught with words—many words in fact—which pointed to that which transcended words. But even his well spoken words were inadequate to show us what he actually awakened to under the Bodhi-tree. On this same track, Zhang Rinpoche the Mahamudra teacher said:
Uttering clumps of words such as these cannot touch it.
Clumps of words, however acute and profound,
Have been pronounced in many accounts,
But are incapable of touching the real nature of Mind.
Zen, more than most schools, understood the problem of mistaking the finger for the moon or the same mistaking words, as concepts, for Mind. They used koans to break the students habit of using clumps of words as a means of grasping the pure Mind which is beyond words. Consider this story.
One day the old master called in this two best students to test out their progress. When they had entered his small room he told them to sit down. After he was silent for a few minutes the old master raised his right arm and pointed in the direction of his small shrine and said, “What is this?”
The first student said, “That is the Buddha!”
The second student wasn’t so quick to respond. When he did finally respond he got up turned around then bowed three times in the direction of the door both students had entered.
The old master laughed out loud and said to the second student, “Well, that takes a good eye. So to whom does this eye belong?
The second student then pointed in the direction of the old master’s small shrine.
This story is meant to illustrate that we can use words in a very clever and instructive way to point to what transcends words, namely, Mind. We may not yet have a glimpse into the nature of Mind itself like the second student, but we can say that we have a pretty good idea where to look.
Maybe after twenty years of trying to comprehend Mind we will finally see why the second student bowed and what his pointing was really meant to disclose which was exactly the same as what the old master was trying to show.
i want to thank you for your blog of compassion. SANSQOOBES.
Posted by: larry denenberg | August 28, 2010 at 08:06 AM