Text as Raft

When Bodhidharma came rom the West to China, he carried a robe,  bowl, and the Lankavatara Sutra. He passed these on to Huike, the Second Patriarch, but what he transmitted wasn’t fabric, or a receptacle, or a sheaf of paper. He transmitted Mind. But he still gave Huike the book, the bowl, and the robe. He may have been done with them, but Huike still needed them.

Bodhidharma said, “Reciting Sutras results in good memory; Keeping precepts results in a good rebirth; And making offering results in good karma; Yet, none of those result in finding the Buddha.” He didn’t say not to do these things, just that the product of doing them is not seeing your True Buddha Nature. It is said that Ananda, the Buddha’s attendant and source of the Sutras (“Thus have I heard”) didn’t achieve liberation because he grasped only the words of the Buddha, not the Mind of the Buddha.

Much of what we think of as Zen comes from the Lankavatara, and other teachings of the Buddha collected in the Sutras. But having a good memory of what is in the Sutras doesn’t necessarily mean that the marrow of the message has been attained. The word-head has to be grabbed and hung onto like when riding a wild horse. Grabbing the tail only results in disaster. 

We can’t disregard the teachings of the Buddha and Masters.

Once we’ve internalized them to the point where they are no longer words and concepts, then we can say we’re liberated. We have to listen for that right word, the sound of a rock hitting a stick, or a baseball hitting a bat, and when we do, there is no need for words or concepts. It happens before the first thought, and Mind has been transmitted. 

But until we have reached that point, we’re still stuck in the middle of the river of our discontent, and are still in need of the raft to get across, and the words we hear and read are the raft. We may need to use that raft countless times not only for ourselves, but like Bodhidharma and Huike, to help ferry all sentient beings until they have also reached the shore of liberation.

Haengdal Citta gave the Dharma talk March 20, 2024.

"Right Word, Right Time"

The question in old dialogues is often posed, “What is Buddha?” Some answers have been “Dried shite on a stick,” or, “The Cypress tree in the courtyard.” These are both fine answers, if you happen to be in a Tang Dynasty latrine, or actually have a Cypress tree and you have a courtyard. Neither of these statements are appropriate for me, as I don’t have that tree, and I’m not in the latrine, and I don’t use a stick. We also say in our Zennie way to “Go drink tea,” or, “Go wash your bowls.” Again, unless I have a kettle on, or just had a bowl of Weetabix, not appropriate (and somewhat passive-aggressive when you get down to it). What does “Go drink tea” mean, when is appropriate, and why sink into using a cliche when more accurate and appropriate words are available?

Bodhidharma said Zen is “Directly pointing to the human mind; seeing one's nature and become a Buddha; do not establish words and letters.” Words are all we have—what Bodhidharma had, Mazu, Huangbo, Seung Sahn, and myself. The Buddha had 45 years worth of teaching, and they went well beyond the words of Four Truths, and beyond the Flower Sermon for the wordless. 

When we attach to words we get in trouble, either by taking them literally in some cases, disregarding the ones we don’t like, and not knowing the meaning of them. When we have an aversion to them, using Bodhidharma’s statement about “Not establishing words & letters” as an excuse not to read a Sutra or quotations from the old Masters or not to listen to our teachers and others, we miss literally Millenia of teachings. 

Huineng and Jinul are both said to have had awakening experiences by reading, so it can’t be al bad. So it’s not the words that are the problem or the hindrance, it’s missing the other lines from Bodhidharma about seeing our True Buddha Nature and becoming buddhas by way of investigating mind.

So again the question pops up, “What is Buddha?” Mazu said “Mind is Buddha.” Huangbo taught, “All Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but One Mind, beside which nothing exists….It is that which you see before you—begin to reason about it (create conceptual thinking), and at once you fall into error.” Bodhidharma taught “Everything that appears in the three realms comes from mind.”

Zen Master Seung Sahn said, “If you sincerely ask, ‘What am I,’ you will run into a wall where all thinking is cut off. We call this ‘Don’t Know.’” Zen is keeping this ‘Don’t Know’ always and everywhere….’What is this?’ One Mind is infinite kalpas.” 

One Mind, Zen, Buddha, all are what is in front of you. Right here, right now, what is it? When the concepts are gone, and even the words that led to their erasure, just this is it—Mind, Buddha, Zen, everything is it, nothing excluded, nothing rejected.

Tell me to go drink tea or to wash my bowls, I’ll hit you with a stick 30 times…wait. No I won’t, but I probably would roll my eyes, mutter to myself under my breath, and sigh. That’s what’s here, right now.