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I have observed pseudo-Zen teachers
who claim that Zen practice and enlightenment is aimed only at
realizing this condition, and learning to expand and sustain it…
adherents of this practice are unable to advance and experience the
true path of Zen.
Learned audience, many popular
“Zen” books advocate the experience of the universal mirror prajna
and the prajna of equality, but fail to acknowledge, much less
encourage students to realize, the deeper levels of wisdom beyond
these partial aspects of the enlightened mind… such books sometimes
assert that progress on the path of Zen consists only in expanding
the duration that the conditions of ‘oneness’ or ‘pure awareness’
can be sustained…
[but] failing to recognize the
wisdom of differentiation, can effectively bar students from the
true wisdom of the buddhas and Zen masters. The overall effect of
practicing such teachings actually fosters a non-Buddhist disdain
for the world of things and events. If such teachings were true,
the highest realization of Zen would consist of nothing more than
living in a detached state of pure awareness all the time. To
become fixated on this aspect of the enlightened mind is to abstain
from the zeal, the passion, the joy, and the heartache that gives
life its flavor.
…there is much more to Zen Buddhism
than experiences of oneness or pure awareness. The practice and
enlightenment of Zen includes the wisdom of differentiation,
infinite variety, and joyful participation in the world.
Becoming attached to or fixated on
the blissful conditions of oneness, or pure awareness is a disease
that causes practice and enlightenment to stagnate and become foul.
The profound wisdom and skillful techniques of the buddhas and Zen
ancestors are beyond the reach of practitioners that stop here.
Failing to awaken to the wisdom beyond emptiness and equality, they
remain powerless to help others in any truly meaningful way.
~The Flatbed Sutra of Louie Wing
What all the buddhas and all the patriarchs have received and
retained, and transmitted one-to-one, is the eternal mirror. They1
have the same view and the same face, the same image and the same
cast; they share the same state and realize the same experience. A
foreigner appears, a foreigner is reflected—one hundred and eight
thousand of them. A Chinese person appears, a Chinese person is
reflected—for a moment and for ten thousand years. The past
appears, the past is reflected; the present appears, the present is
reflected; a buddha appears, a buddha is reflected; a patriarch
appears, a patriarch is reflected.
~Dogen, Shobogenzo,
Kokyo, Gudo Nishijima & Mike Cross
The vast, unnamable, fathomless
void is imperceptible, formless, intangible, and unmoving; it was
never born and can never die. Though it is not separate from the
myriad things, the myriad things do not alter it; like a clear
mirror, it adapts to all things while fundamentally remaining
unchanged by them. Similarly, your own basic awareness is able to
perfectly perceive all things, without becoming entangled with
them. The unnamable true nature or your own mind is, at once,
undifferentiated and able to differentiate all things. When the
neighbor’s dog barks unexpectedly, your clear awareness
spontaneously comprehends it; when a spider walks along the back of
your neck, your luminous mind registers it. Who hears the dog? Who
feels the spider?
~Louie
Wing, ~The
Flatbed Sutra of Louie Wing