What Does It Matter Who You Are With?

[Shi Da Dao]

I have sat in isolation, with one or two people - and with hundreds - it really does not matter. The empty mind - and its rediscovery - does not have any interest in the external world. Human-beings do, of course, because it is their evolutionary environment. For a very long time, attention to externals meant the difference between survival and death! All this is understood when a modern education is experienced. If we are lucky enough to have our basic needs adequately met - then we may 'look within' and seek-out the empty mind ground which the Ch'an teachers have so much say about - and so little to discuss! Externals - good, bad or indifferent - are irrelevant. When Master Xu Yun's (1840-1959) reputation was continuously attacked during different periods of his life in China - he paid the allegations no heed. The Buddha clearly taught that the nature of the material world is 'change' and that this 'change' continuously traverses through good, bad and indifferent manifestations! Non-attachment disengages the 'awareness' facility of the mind from externals and turns this capacity inwards for perception of the empty mind ground. If you look within properly - then it does not matter who you know or who you are with!