r/zen • u/[deleted] • Mar 14 '18

Huang Po: Motionless Mind

Not til your thoughts cease their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.

  • Huang Po
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u/ewk [non-sectarian consensus] Mar 14 '18

No. I'm saying we can't talk about what he is talking about unless we know what he is talking about.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '18

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '18

Huangbo:

All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists.

That's pretty easy.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '18

Wtf is a "One Mind"?

You mean there's no time, space, money or gravity?

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '18

It's an arbitrary name. We can call it the Banana if you prefer, or maybe the Bahamas. Then we can all awaken and dwell in the Bahamas.

The important part is the description, the label is unimportant.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '18

I think that the term refers to something specific and relevant. Something real, that can be observed firsthand. And lacking that connection I conclude that I do not understand the statement.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '18

Huangbo:

Ordinary people all indulge in conceptual thought based on environmental phenomena, hence they feel desire and hatred. To eliminate environmental phenomena, just put an end to your conceptual thinking. When this ceases, environmental phenomena are void; when these are void, thought ceases. But if you try to eliminate environment without first putting a stop to conceptual thought, you will not succeed, but merely increase its power to disturb you. Thus all things are naught but Mind - intangible Mind; so what can you hope to attain?

The name is completely arbitrary when it comes to his profound meaning, but because your regular, thinking mind plays such an enormous role in creating issues in understanding, Huangbo chooses to use the word Mind. Blofeld claims Huangbo wasn't entirely happy with his choice, considering the way he uses Mind right after talking about mind with the conventional meaning, I can see how it could be confusing.

As for "Something real, that can be observed firsthand," Huangbo, quoting and then explaining Buddha's words, has this to say:

Therefore the Buddha said: 'I truly obtained nothing from Enlightenment.' There is just a mysterious tacit understanding and no more.

He's not talking about something that you will see separately on its own. Just understand "beside which nothing exists."

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '18 edited Mar 14 '18

You think the term refers to a philosophical abstraction. I, as I said, do not.

One Mind means there is a single Mind behind all manifestations of Mind.

Mind is sati, awareness.

One means singular, unifying.

And I am going with that it is a phenomenon that can be observed. An actual real thing.

And if one has not observed this thing then any conclusions one might come to about this are mere self-administered philosophical anus-smoke.

I think this is simple a case of my faith in logical induction being less than yours.

Also, I saw something that looked like One Mind a couple of times. So there you go.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '18

Well, tell me when you figure it out.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '18

Same to you, with nuts.

Are we allowed to disagree? Does /r/zen allow for that?

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '18

Man I missed your first edit and I almost missed this one, though I don't think we disagree as much as you think we do.

One Mind means there is a single Mind behind all manifestations of Mind.

Again I quote "beside which nothing exists." I doubt you'll give me any credence so just remain aware of that quote the next time you go looking for One Mind as a personal favor.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '18 edited Mar 14 '18

I don't dispute the truth of the statement, I doubt its intelligibility to the ignorant.

Like one blind man telling another blind man that roses are red (and then they both nod wisely). No, sorry, a patch of abstraction will not cut it. Any conclusions reached are worse than false.

It's like treating an auto-repair manual as a treatise on mental health.

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u/koalazen Mar 15 '18

Is that to be read as "nothing (some kind of mysterious nothingness, empty mind) (does) exists beside mind (as a kind of essence of mind)"? Or is it more "one mind is the reality, and oh look nothing exists beside that, so it's kinda interesting on its own"?

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '18

The latter.

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