The Great Way
Aug 2, 2023 19:33:22 GMT 1
Post by Shi Da Dao on Aug 2, 2023 19:33:22 GMT 1
People who study the path today do not understand the Great Way - they only strive to fulfill greed and ambition. At the very outset of their inspiration to study the Way, their initial understanding is already mistaken.
The Way is the path of fundamental purity: for immense aeons, and even up to the present day, it has no gain or loss, no new or old, no light or dark, no form or name, It is not more in the Buddhas and not less in ordinary people. To assist on calling it the 'Way' is already defiling; to say something is accomplished by methods of learning the Way is what I have called mistaken. It was for lack of choice that the ancients referred to people heading for transcendence as 'Students of the Way'. The study is that there is nothing to study; the Way is that there is nothing to be a Way. Since there is nothing to be a Way, there is no clinging; since there is nothing to be a Way, there is no clinging, since there is nothing to be a Way, there is no following. If one idly slips and says the word 'Buddha', one must simply wash out one's mouth for three years - only thus can one be called a 'Real Student of the Way'.
Nan-ch'uan said, "The Way is not in the province of knowing, nor in the province of unknowing. Knowing is false consciousness, unknowing is indifference. If you truly arrive at the Way without doubt, it is like cosmic space - how can you insist on affirmation and denial?
Ch'an Master Shu-Chung (d. 1386 CE)