People are backwards - ignorant of the true self, they pursue things, willingly suffering immeasurable pains in their greed for a little bit of pleasure. In the mornings, before they've opened their eyes and gotten out of bed, when they're still only half awake, their minds are already flying about in confusion, flowing along with random thoughts. Although good and bad deeds have not yet appeared, heaven and hell are already formed in their hearts befor they even get out of bed. By the time they go into action, the seeds of heaven and hell are already implanted in their minds.
Did not the Buddha say, "All faculties of sense are receptacles manifested by your own mind. Physical bodies are manifestations of your own minds' representations of forms as subjectively imagined. These manifestations are like the flow of a river, like seeds, like a lamp, like wind, passing away from instant to instant. Frenetic activity, attraction to impure things, and voracity are the causes of the useless, deceptive habits that seem to have always existed, like a waterwheel always turning."
If you really see through this, you understand the meaning of impersonality. You know that heaven and hell are nowhere else but in the heart of the half awake individual about to get out of bed - they do not come from outside.
While in the process of waking up, you should really pay attention. While you are paying attention, you should not make any effort to struggle with whatever is going on in your mind. While struggling you waste energy. As the 3rd ancestor of Zen said, "If you try to stop movement and return to stillness, the attempt to be still will increase movement."
When you notice that you are saving energy in the midst of the mundane stress of daily affairs, this is where you gain energy, this is where you attain buddhahood, this is where you turn hell into heaven.
~ Zen Master Dahui
Did not the Buddha say, "All faculties of sense are receptacles manifested by your own mind. Physical bodies are manifestations of your own minds' representations of forms as subjectively imagined. These manifestations are like the flow of a river, like seeds, like a lamp, like wind, passing away from instant to instant. Frenetic activity, attraction to impure things, and voracity are the causes of the useless, deceptive habits that seem to have always existed, like a waterwheel always turning."
If you really see through this, you understand the meaning of impersonality. You know that heaven and hell are nowhere else but in the heart of the half awake individual about to get out of bed - they do not come from outside.
While in the process of waking up, you should really pay attention. While you are paying attention, you should not make any effort to struggle with whatever is going on in your mind. While struggling you waste energy. As the 3rd ancestor of Zen said, "If you try to stop movement and return to stillness, the attempt to be still will increase movement."
When you notice that you are saving energy in the midst of the mundane stress of daily affairs, this is where you gain energy, this is where you attain buddhahood, this is where you turn hell into heaven.
~ Zen Master Dahui
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