Charles Luk - On The Hua Tou.
Mar 9, 2012 9:54:59 GMT 1
Post by Shi Da Dao on Mar 9, 2012 9:54:59 GMT 1
The Hua T’ou Technique And The Feeling of Doubt.
By Charles Luk – Upasaka Lu Kuan Yu
(Quoted from Charles Luk’s book entitled ‘Practical Buddhism’ – pages 22-24. For sake of clarity, I have substituted the Wades-Giles ‘i-ch’ing’ for the modern pinyin of ‘yi-qing’, so as to differentiate between the concept expressed here of a ‘doubting mind’, and the well known Book of Changes, otherwise known as the I Ching [Yijing], etc. Readers should be aware that although Luk talks of a ‘feeling of doubt’ (yi-qing), in the Chinese texts the expression is usually ‘da-yi-qing’, or ‘great doubting mind’). SDD.
‘When men were attached to material things, people of high spirituality became rare. The masters were then obliged to devise a poison-against-poison method called the hua t’ou which consists of the giving rise to a feeling of doubt (yi-qing – ‘doubting mind’) about WHO the seeker of Enlightenment is. Emphasis is on the word WHO which supports this vital doubt which comes from the student’s eagerness to know that which practices the Dharma. He knows that his body and intellect will cease to exist when he dies and are, therefore, transient and cannot realise permanent reality. He is keen to know about the prime mover of all his activities; hence his doubt which, growing larger and larger, will submerge his body, mind and environment to form a mass of fire which destroys all thoughts, feelings and passions like a re-hot stove which melts the snow that falls on it, as the masters put it. His monkey mind cannot stay in this scorching fire, and its death is automatically followed by the resurrection of his true mind which is pure and clean. This yi-qing should be maintained throughout the training until Bodhi is achieved.
After the student has wiped out all dualities in their coarse aspects, he will reach the state of bright stillness which still implies awareness of it, that is a duality of subjective ego and objective dhyana in its subtlety. They are ego and Dharma in their finest aspects mentioned in the sutras as the last hindrance on the holy path.
It is much easier to relinquish the subtle ego than the subtle Dharma which is wonderful and attractive, and can be easily mistaken for Nirvana. Hence master Han Shan says: “This is the most dangerous pass which I have myself experienced.” If the student persists in holding on to this feeling of doubt, this subtle Dharma which is but an illusion will vanish, and thus released from the last hindrance, he will leap over both phenomenon and noumenon to reach that state of Samadhi in which the ‘yi-qing’ (doubting mind) itself is sublimated and transformed into the Buddha’s all-knowledge (sarvajna). This is the Tathagata stage.
This feeling of doubt, which the masters likened to an indestructible sword, cuts down all thoughts and mental states during the training. Hence Lin Chi says: “If you meeta Buddha, cut him down; if you meet a Patriarch, cut him down; if you meet your relatives, cut them down. Only then will you be liberated, and if you are not held by externals, you will be disengaged and comfortably independent. For all visions conceived by the sense organs are unreal and can never compare to the inconceivable and inexpressible Bhutatathata.’
By Charles Luk – Upasaka Lu Kuan Yu
(Quoted from Charles Luk’s book entitled ‘Practical Buddhism’ – pages 22-24. For sake of clarity, I have substituted the Wades-Giles ‘i-ch’ing’ for the modern pinyin of ‘yi-qing’, so as to differentiate between the concept expressed here of a ‘doubting mind’, and the well known Book of Changes, otherwise known as the I Ching [Yijing], etc. Readers should be aware that although Luk talks of a ‘feeling of doubt’ (yi-qing), in the Chinese texts the expression is usually ‘da-yi-qing’, or ‘great doubting mind’). SDD.
‘When men were attached to material things, people of high spirituality became rare. The masters were then obliged to devise a poison-against-poison method called the hua t’ou which consists of the giving rise to a feeling of doubt (yi-qing – ‘doubting mind’) about WHO the seeker of Enlightenment is. Emphasis is on the word WHO which supports this vital doubt which comes from the student’s eagerness to know that which practices the Dharma. He knows that his body and intellect will cease to exist when he dies and are, therefore, transient and cannot realise permanent reality. He is keen to know about the prime mover of all his activities; hence his doubt which, growing larger and larger, will submerge his body, mind and environment to form a mass of fire which destroys all thoughts, feelings and passions like a re-hot stove which melts the snow that falls on it, as the masters put it. His monkey mind cannot stay in this scorching fire, and its death is automatically followed by the resurrection of his true mind which is pure and clean. This yi-qing should be maintained throughout the training until Bodhi is achieved.
After the student has wiped out all dualities in their coarse aspects, he will reach the state of bright stillness which still implies awareness of it, that is a duality of subjective ego and objective dhyana in its subtlety. They are ego and Dharma in their finest aspects mentioned in the sutras as the last hindrance on the holy path.
It is much easier to relinquish the subtle ego than the subtle Dharma which is wonderful and attractive, and can be easily mistaken for Nirvana. Hence master Han Shan says: “This is the most dangerous pass which I have myself experienced.” If the student persists in holding on to this feeling of doubt, this subtle Dharma which is but an illusion will vanish, and thus released from the last hindrance, he will leap over both phenomenon and noumenon to reach that state of Samadhi in which the ‘yi-qing’ (doubting mind) itself is sublimated and transformed into the Buddha’s all-knowledge (sarvajna). This is the Tathagata stage.
This feeling of doubt, which the masters likened to an indestructible sword, cuts down all thoughts and mental states during the training. Hence Lin Chi says: “If you meeta Buddha, cut him down; if you meet a Patriarch, cut him down; if you meet your relatives, cut them down. Only then will you be liberated, and if you are not held by externals, you will be disengaged and comfortably independent. For all visions conceived by the sense organs are unreal and can never compare to the inconceivable and inexpressible Bhutatathata.’