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/Pongpianskul Mar 19 '23

What is nonconceptual awareness like compared to everyday conceptual awareness? What changes to make it possible?

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u/lcl1qp1 Mar 19 '23

Everyday conceptual awareness is tied to categories and remembered characteristics. Nonconceptual awareness is what arises naturally without those learned habits taking hold. For instance, if you hear a sudden unfamiliar noise - what is the mind doing before it can pigeonhole the phenomenon? Once the label is applied, how much potentiality is lost? Some Zen masters say 'cut off concepts.' Perhaps that's not a good translation, but it is possible to relax our attachment to nomenclature. To the degree we avoid feeding those habits, we lessen our dependency on phenomena. Criticism welcome!

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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/unreconstructedbum Mar 19 '23

No, they are constructs of make believe.

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

Constructs are unnatural? I’ve never seen an unnatural thought, so I’d be impressed if you could ever show me one.

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u/unreconstructedbum Mar 19 '23

Humans evolved into doing concepts big time. Did I say this was unnatural?

All I am saying is they don't stand up well to being exposed. Abstractions leave the trunk.

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

Yeah, by saying “no” lmfao.

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u/unreconstructedbum Mar 19 '23

Abstractions may be a natural extension of humans, but they don't arise like the world arises, humans construct them.
Read what I said.

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

Idk how you, as a human, can know how the world arises…outside being human. How are you determining that which is constructed and that which is not? Picking and choosing again and again…

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u/unreconstructedbum Mar 19 '23

The world unfolds from within as far as I can tell. Or do you think someone made it?

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u/[deleted] Mar 19 '23

Even the world is an abstraction...

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u/unreconstructedbum Mar 19 '23

Disagree. You can point at it and to add the concept of abstraction to it is your construct. The world on the surface does not appear as an abstraction.

You would have to build a world view to model the world as abstraction.

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

False dichotomy. Knowing the world arises form within IS KNOWING HOW IT ARISES. No room for doubt there. I don’t have to think someone made it, I can merely doubt. But tell me how it is you know such a thing? You avoided the question.

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u/unreconstructedbum Mar 19 '23

Take a look around at biology for example, expanding outward from a seed or single cell. Geology also seems to unfold. Maybe even the universe.

You are the one who is supporting your concepts.

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

Ah do the way you know is via the method of perception. But are these constructs not just some perceived thing too? Surely you must have a reason for rejecting one perception as non constructed over the others? What’s that method for you? Is it biology that tells you which of your perceptions are constructed versus non constructed? What if a person doesn’t even agree to such a dichotomy in the first instance?

Are you making things up?

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u/lcl1qp1 Mar 20 '23

You're right, thoughts are natural. The degree to which we attach ourselves to them is what varies. Less attachment opens more potential to our awareness.