The so-called Zen transmission which is from Mind to Mind is not an intellectual transmission, nor can it be considered to be a conceptual, semantic transmission. In the strict sense, there is no transmission. There is just a waking up to our true nature. Before this awakening, even though our true nature has always been present in all of its glory, we did not recognize it. When the Buddha awakened he said:
“Strange! How Strange! How can it be that although all sentient beings are fully possessed of the wisdom of the Tathagata, because of their ignorance and confusion, they neither know nor see that?” (Avatamsaka Sutra)
In light of the above, was anything really transmitted or conveyed? Not really. Mind is always present. But this does not mean everyone recognizes it. The people the Buddha saw looked like blind Buddhas or were like poor people bemoaning their poverty with gold all around them which they couldn’t recognize. Ordinary people, let’s not forget, are fast asleep. The Buddha had to teach spiritual somnambulists whose eyes were ‘open wide shut’ against the clear light Mind.
Eventually, the time comes when people who say they are Buddhist begin to doubt there is such a thing as pure Mind which can awaken to itself. Eventually, the idea of a transmission turns into there is no transmission. It’s one big joke, in other words. If in Blofeld’s translation of Huang-po’s sermons, Huang-po says:
Transmitting and receiving transmission are both a most difficult kind of mysterious understanding, so that few indeed have been able lo receive it. In fact, however. Mind is not Mind and transmission is not really transmission.
Can we say that there is really no Mind and no transmission; it’s all a big joke? No, far from it. There is no Mind and no transmission that can be intellectually conceived. Mind is beyond the ken of mental images no matter how subtle and fine. When there is no mind of deluded thought and mind stirrings, we have our one cubic centimeter of chance to experience the Mind to Mind transmission.
For those who have had the good fortune to awaken to Mind; who also realize Mind was there all the time, they enter a world where few are able to go. Of those who imagine Zen is one big joke; that there is no Mind to realize, have fallen into the abyss of nihilism from which there is no escape. They have imprisoned themselves in a hell from which there is no escape or redemption.
I have to disagree with 'no escape or redemption'. Difficult, probably, but never? Surely the impossibly complex laws of cause and effect permit the possibility of escape and redemption?
Posted by: David Ashton | May 25, 2014 at 12:05 PM