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/[deleted] Mar 14 '18

How does sitting bring about the cessation of thought by which one realizes the unconditioned Mind?

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u/koalazen Mar 14 '18

You tell me.

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u/[deleted] Mar 14 '18

It doesn't.

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u/koalazen Mar 15 '18

Then what does? In my experience sitting (and observation of mind while walking, talking etc.) does naturally reduce the flow of thought. I sat many times with little or no thought.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

You appear to be still ensconced in physicality while the telos of Zen is extra-physical and spiritual which is beyond the effort of formal sitting. Very few if any Zen masters realized buddhatā by the effort of sitting. How does your sitting reveal that which animates your physical body?

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u/koalazen Mar 16 '18

I don't know. You might be right. I just did Zazen and I feel I can't see one mind as well as before it. Is meditation plain evil?

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

Zen's meaning doesn't have anything to do with physical sitting. It's closer to "intuition" which my dictionary defines this way: the act or process of coming to direct knowledge or certainty without reasoning or inferring. This is where the idea of "sudden enlightenment" comes into the picture insofar as 'direct knowledge' is sudden which goes beyond reasoning or inferring. "Just sitting" helps us to calm down since most of us tend to be frenetic at the end of the day.

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u/koalazen Mar 16 '18

So you're saying "just sitting" can still be good for other purposes like developing calm? What is good for developping the direct knowledge of Zen? Reading huangbo regularly? I have had direct intuition but I feel it is kinda fragile and can be forgotten.

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '18

Yes. To your second question, that ain't easy. What if you met a great Zen teacher and he asked you, "What moves your hands and feet?" All the reading in the world will probably not help. You're not connected with what moves your hands and feet even though they are moved! Next, to help you out he asks you, "When you do zazen, who or what breathes in and out?"

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u/koalazen Mar 16 '18

Causality? Are you saying I have no control anyway? lol. That's deep :p Now I feel connected again hahaha :D

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '18

Causality?

Not in the Buddhist sense (i.e., Buddhism does not understand causality in terms of Newtonian mechanics). Bodhidharma said:

Everyone wants to see this mind, and those who move their hands and feet by its light are as many as the grains of the sand along the Ganges, but when you ask them, they can't explain it. They're like puppets. It's theirs to use. Why do they not see it?

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u/koalazen Mar 17 '18

Yes, this mind is everything. But even though it is always everything the intuitive "clicking" in the human mind is not granted. Sometimes I know it is everything right in front of me because I have known it before (even minutes ago) but it just doesn't feel like a direct experience, the intimate feeling is not there.

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '18

The feeling you are looking for is a thought-form appearing in the mind you are seeking.

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u/[deleted] Mar 17 '18

The big problem is the confusion between thought and Mind. The former is like the waves of the ocean. The latter is like the element of water.

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