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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Deliverance can be attained only through a sudden illumination.
Chapter 2: What is sudden illumination in Zen teachings?
What is sudden illumination? Sudden. means ridding yourself of deluded thoughts instantaneously. Illumination means the realization that illumination is not something to be attained. You must start from the very root.
Chapter 3: How does the mind function as the root of our experiences?
And what is that root? Mind is the root. As the Lankavatara Sutra says, When mental processes arise, then do all dharmas or phenomena spring forth. And when mental processes cease, then do all dharmas cease likewise. Those desiring to attain the pure land must first purify their own minds. For the purification of mind is the purity of the Buddha land. As the sutras say,
Chapter 4: What practices lead to the purification of the mind?
Just by mind control, all things become possible to us. Sages seek from mind, not from the Buddha. Fools seek from the Buddha instead of seeking from mind. Wise men regulate their minds rather than their persons. Fools regulate their persons rather than their minds. Evil springs forth from the mind.
Chapter 5: How does meditation contribute to achieving Buddhahood?
and by the mind is evil overcome. Thus we may know that all good and evil proceed from our minds, and that mind is therefore the root. If you desire deliverance, you must first know all about the root. Unless you can penetrate to this truth, all your efforts will be vain. For while you are still seeking something from forms, external to yourselves, you will never attain.
As the Sutra says, for so long as you direct your search to the forms around you, you will not attain your goal. even after eon upon eon.
Chapter 6: What does it mean to have a non-dwelling mind?
Whereas by contemplating your inner awareness, you can achieve Buddhahood in a single flash. Your treasure house is in yourself. It contains all you need. By what means is the root practice to be performed? only by sitting in meditation. For it is accomplished by jnana and samadhi. Jnana and samadhi are essential to the search for the sacred knowledge of the Buddhas.
For without these, the thoughts remain in tumult and the roots of goodness suffer damage. When wrong thinking ceases, that is jhāna. When you sit contemplating your original nature, that is Samadhi. For indeed, that original nature is your eternal mind.
Chapter 7: How is perception achieved through one's own nature?
By Samadhi, you withdraw your minds from their surroundings. thereby making them impervious to the eight winds. That is to say, impervious to gain and loss, fame and disrepute, praise and blame, sorrow and joy. By concentrating this way, even ordinary people may enter the state of Buddhahood. How can that be so? The Sutra says, All beings who observe the Buddha precept,
thereby enter Buddhahood.
Chapter 8: What is the relationship between purity of mind and nirvana?
Other names for this are deliverance, gaining the further shore, transcending the six states of mortal being, overleaping the three worlds, or becoming a mighty bodhisattva, A sage.
A conqueror.
Whereon should the mind settle and dwell? It should settle upon non-dwelling and there dwell. This non-dwelling means not allowing the mind to dwell upon anything whatsoever. Dwelling upon nothing means that the mind is not fixed upon good or evil. Being or non-being. Inside or outside, or somewhere between the two. Void or non-void. Concentration or distraction.
This dwelling upon nothing is the state in which it should dwell. Those who attain to it are said to have non-dwelling minds. In other words, they have Buddha-minds. What does mind resemble? Mind has no colour, such as green or yellow, red or white. It is not long or short. It does not vanish or appear. It is free from purity and impurity alike. and its duration is eternal.
It is utter stillness. Such then is the form and shape of our original mind, which is also our original body, the Buddha Kaya. It is not perceived by the body or mind, by the eyes, ears, nose, sense of touch or consciousness. It is perception by means of your own nature. How so? Because your own nature, being essentially pure and utterly still,
its immaterial and motionless substance, is capable of this perception.
¶¶
Since that pure substance cannot be found, where does such perception come from? We may liken it to a bright mirror, which, though it contains no forms, can nevertheless perceive all forms. Why? Just because it is free from mental activity. If you students of the way had minds unstained,
they would not give rise to falsehood and their attachments to the subjective ego and to objective externals would vanish. Then purity would arise of itself and you would thereby be capable of such perception. The Dhammapada Sutra says, To establish ourselves amid perfect voidness in a single flash is excellent wisdom indeed.
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