My uncle Ivan was a great deer hunter; he could see a deer where all other people only saw a forest of trees in the distance. One day my uncle Ivan pointed out a deer to me in the far distance. I couldn't see it at first, but I eventually saw the deer after relaxing my vision, not trying so hard to see it.
Did my uncle Ivan transmit the deer to me that I could not see at first? Of course not! Is enlightenment transmitted by teacher to student? No, of course not. So what is this Mind to Mind or spirit to spirit transmission all about? It means intuitively we have seen this mysterious Mind or spirit as when I suddenly saw the deer in the distance, the same deer that my uncle Ivan saw.
How easy is it in would be if a teacher could hand out enlightenment as if it were like an apple or some other kind of object but Zen does not work that way. The student is required to pull themselves up by their own effort to the necessary condition by which to intuit pure Mind or spirit. There is no other way.
Today, most all Zen students fail to have an intuitive understanding of pure Mind. And why is this? Is it because they believe they need a certificate from a Zen master verifying their enlightenment? I can assure you that it is something like that. This is a kind of Zen materialism or spiritual materialism at its worst. Zen masters refer to it as a “paper transmission.”
In other words, when one intrapersonally intuits the pure Mind, that is the transmission of Dharma. That intuitive fact is the transmission that Zen speaks about. It doesn't depend on a paper certificate given to you by a Zen master. But then we might ask how can we trust that this person is enlightened if he or she doesn't have a paper certificate? If the student is stuck here they will never attain real satori. Real satori is self validating. It is so unlike anything the human mind has ever beheld. One must experience it personally.
Thank you.
So, how does satori (awakening) confirm satori? What does it even mean to say awakening *does* anything? (Hint: It would be more accurate to say that awakening is the end of doing - the end of suffering, the end of the illusion of a separate self, etc.)
Posted by: clyde | February 04, 2021 at 05:14 PM
Clyde: Confirm.
Posted by: TheZennist | February 04, 2021 at 03:18 PM
OK, let me make it simple for my benefit:
What does the word "validate" mean to you?
Posted by: clyde | February 04, 2021 at 02:45 PM
Clyde: This Mind of which Huangbo speaks is pure spirit not yet congealed into a thought; even before letters and words. It must be personally intuited (kenshō) by the Zen student. Persons heavily attached to their temporal body (the five aggregates) never have kenshō. Mind is truly unthinkable.
Posted by: TheZennist | February 04, 2021 at 02:14 PM
Huangbo said, “All buddhas and all living beings are only this one mind; there is nothing else. This mind has never been born and has never died... It is not existent or nonexistent, not old or new, neither long nor short, neither large nor small. It goes beyond all limits and measurements, all labels and characteristics. This very being is it; when conceptual thoughts arise, it is turned away from. It is like space, with no boundaries or dimensions.”
Tell me, how are you going to validate that?
Posted by: clyde | February 04, 2021 at 01:07 AM