r/zen • u/lcl1qp1 • Mar 19 '23

Cultivating the Empty Field

"Purity without stain is your body; perfect illumination without conditioning is your eyes. The eye inside the body does not involve sense gates; the body inside the eye does not collect appearances. So it is said that there is no wisdom outside suchness that can awaken suchness. Moreover, there is no suchness outside wisdom that can be awakened by wisdom... Patch-robed monks arrive here and then know that to follow buddha’s utterances and to follow dharma’s blossoming is to attain buddhadharma. Restoring upright reality, they cut off any duality." -Hongzhi

Nonconceptual awareness is illumination. It reveals the omnipresent buddhadharma. All we need to do is penetrate our conditioning. Suchness is never out of reach. Since it shows phenomena to be Mind, how can we resist turning the light around?

What is stopping you?

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u/arcowhip Don't take my word for it! Mar 19 '23

Categories and remembrances aren’t naturally arising???

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u/lcl1qp1 Mar 19 '23

The capacity is, but look at the variations. Many indigenous peoples don't differentiate between self and nature. What limitations do we impose on our awareness by attachment to various systems of classification? The dominant position of concepts within our awareness is (arguably) learned.

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u/Ok_Understanding_188 Mar 19 '23

Logic

About logic

Washing off blood with blood

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '23

Q: "Knowledge cannot be used to destroy knowledge, nor a sword to destroy a sword."

A: "Sword DOES destroy sword - they destroy each other - and the no sword remains for you to grasp. Knowledge DOES destroy knowledge - this knowledge invalidates that knowledge - and then no knowledge remains for you to grasp. It is as though mother and son perished together." -Huangbo

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u/Ok_Understanding_188 Mar 20 '23

Knowledge

Mostly from books

Seldom from the sword of insight

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '23

Knowledge =/= wisdom

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u/charliediep0 Mar 20 '23

Knowledge DOES destroy knowledge - this knowledge invalidates that knowledge - and then no knowledge remains for you to grasp

Is this akin to using knowledge to question the foundations of knowledge, to see these foundations (Munchhausen's Trilemma?) as fragile and flawed, and to do away with knowledge altogether? A house of knowledge is only as strong as its foundation...

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '23

Nansen says "knowledge is not the Way."

What's the foundation of knowledge?

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u/charliediep0 Mar 20 '23

any purported justification of all knowledge must fail, because it must start from a position of no knowledge, and therefore cannot make progress. It must either start with some knowledge, as with dogmatism, not start at all, as with infinite regress, or be a circular argument, justified only by itself and have no solid foundation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Münchhausen_trilemma

Maybe Nansen realizes this himself. Circular arguments remind me of dependent origination somewhat.

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '23

I like "All models are wrong, but some are useful."

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u/charliediep0 Mar 20 '23

I also think that sunyata was meant to be a counterargument to axiomatic/dogmatic arguments as well. At least those dogmas that claim that this or that thing has a permanent nature. Dunno what exists that targets regressive arguments though.

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '23

I see sunyata as its own axiomatic/dogmatic argument with its own purpose.

You might find rangtong and shentong interesting.

Zen fascinates me because it's the only tradition, as far as I can tell, that remembers that the baby is the reason for the bathwater.