Seek Without Seeking

Discussion in 'Eastern Philosophy' started by Empty Dragon, Feb 10, 2003.

  1. Empty Dragon Empty Registered Senior Member

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    I posted this in 101 Zen stories but it intrigued me so much that I decided to post it in its own thread:

    There is something in each of you that you will only be able to perceive when you turn around. So how does one turn around? By nonseeking, seeking without seeking. This is precisely what people find hard to feal with or get into. How can you seek if you are not seeking? How can you not seek if you are seeking? If you only seek, how is that differnet form pursuing sounds and chasing forms? If you do not seek at all, how are you different from inert matter?
    You must seek, and yet without seeking; not seek, yet still seek. If you can manage to pemetrate this, you will then manage to harmonize seeking and nonseeking. So it is said, "Nonseeking nonseeking-- the body of reality is perfect quiescent. Seeking seeking-- responsive fonction does not miss. Seeking without seeking, nonseeking seeking-- objects and cognitions merge, substance and function are one." Therefore you find the three bodies, four knowledges, five eyes, and six spiritual powers all to light from this. Students must be able to turn around and search all the way through in this way before they can attain realization.
    A seeker asked Yangshan, " What special pathway do you have? Please point out to me."
    Yangshan said, "If I siad there is anything in paticular or nothing in paticular, I would confuse you even more. Where are you from?"
    The seeker said he was from such and such a place. Yangshan asked, "Do you still think of that place?"
    The seeker replied, "I think of it all the time."
    Yangshan said, "What you think of are the buildings, towers, and habitations, of which there are a variety. Now think back to what thinks-- is there a variety of things there."
    The seeker replied, "There is is no variety of things there?"
    Yangshan said, "Basedon your prceptions, you have only attained one mystery. You have a seat and are wearing clothes; hereafter see for yourself."
    The seeker said the object of though is varied, while the thinker is not varied. This view is biased; this is what prompted Yangshan to say he had only attained one mystery-- his perception if the path was not accurate.
    If you ask me, the object of though, with a variety of buildings and houses, is in fact not various. This can be demonstrated. Right now there is a variety before your eyes; there are not so many of these. These are similarly, many types of the unvaried.
    When the seer Bhishmottaranirghosha took the seeker Sudhuna by the hand, Sudhuna saw Buddhas as numerous as atoms in the infinite worlds. When the seer let go of Sudhana's hand everything was as it had been before. Now how do you understand this reversion to normal on relase of the Hand? You'd better understand!
    Source: Instant Zen
     
    Last edited: Feb 11, 2003
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  3. EvilPoet I am what I am Registered Senior Member

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    "If you seek, how is that different from pursuing sound and form? If you don't seek, how are you different from earth, wood, or stone? You must seek without seeking." -Zen Master Foyan

    Don't Seek Zen

    "If you want to attain intimate realization of Zen, first of all don't seek it. What is attained by seeking has already fallen into intellection. The great treasury of Zen has always been open and clear; it has always been the source of power for all your actions. But only when you stop your compulsive mind, to reach the point where not a single thing is born, do you pass through to freedom, not falling into feelings and not dwelling on concepts, transcending all completely. Then Zen is obvious everywhere in the world, with the totality of everything everywhere turning into its great function. Everything comes from your own heart. This is what one ancient called bringing out the family treasure."
    -Zen Master Yuanwu

    Your Treasure

    "My teacher said to me, "The treasure house within you contains everything, and you are free to use it. You don't need to seek outside." -Zen Master Dazhu

    Source for quotes: Zen Essence
     
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  5. Empty Dragon Empty Registered Senior Member

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    When the seer Bhishmottaranirghosha took the seeker Sudhuna by the hand, Sudhuna saw Buddhas as numerous as atoms in the infinite worlds. When the seer let go of Sudhana's hand everything was as it had been before. Now how do you understand this reversion to normal on relase of the Hand? You'd better understand!

    Why did he return to normal?
     
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  7. moonman Registered Senior Member

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    Perhaps because he did not realize for himself, he needed the hand of the seer for initial realization, he never stopped seeking. He was the seeker who saw but did not find.
    Maybe.
     
  8. moonman Registered Senior Member

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    Argh, but thats not it...

    Perhaps it's one of those questions that you understand less and less the more you dig into it. Maybe the idea is to teach that if you seek to undertand you won't, because you must seek wihtout seeking

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  9. EvilPoet I am what I am Registered Senior Member

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    "Never confuse the finger pointing at the moon with the moon itself."
    -Chinese proverb


    The Normal Mind

    "The Way does not require cultivation---just don't pollute it. What is pollution? As long as you have fluctuating mind fabricating artificialities and contrivances, all of this is pollution. If you want to understand the Way directly, the normal mind is the Way. What I mean by the normal mind is the mind without artificiality, without subjective judgememts, without grasping or rejection."
    -Zen Master Mazu, Zen Essence

    Stumbled Past

    "As soon as you try to chase and grab Zen, you've already stumbled past it."
    -Zen Master Yuanwu, Zen Essence
     
  10. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    It was said above:

    "When the seer Bhishmottaranirghosha took the seeker Sudhuna by the hand, Sudhuna saw Buddhas as numerous as atoms in the infinite worlds. When the seer let go of Sudhana's hand everything was as it had been before. Now how do you understand this reversion to normal on relase of the Hand? You'd better understand!"

    and then asked

    "Why did he return to normal?"


    I'd like to have a crack at this. Sudhana saw, with his illusions stripped away, an infinity of points of consciousness (points of attention, droplets in the lake or whatever) within the one cosmic consciousness. He saw what lay beyond his distracting mind, beyond the illusion of this particular life and this particular universe to what, ultimately, is really there, an infinity of experiences being had. And he saw that each of these points of consciousness was in itself potentially a Budhha, since every one is in the end contained within the one consciousness from which the points arise, the Buddha mind.

    When he metaphorically stopped holding hands he returned to the illusory world that he considered normal, the one whose existence as more than an illusion we still cannot logically explain all this time later.

    I would read his seeing of an infinity of Buddhas as a visual metaphor for his sudden understanding that we are all potentially the Buddha, all have the state of consciousness within us somewhere under all the mental clutter that is the ultimately blissful state of being not just a point of consciousness but blissfully becoming one with the space between the points, the medium from which the points arise, the one single pure experience of consciousness that embraces them all, in other words the Buddha, the experience of being nothing which is bliss.

    I'm very open to criticism on this one. It's how the story seems to me as a metaphor. It's hard grappling with idea that consciousness is all there is.
     
    Last edited: Feb 25, 2003
  11. Empty Dragon Empty Registered Senior Member

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    All things are buddhas by there very nature. A chair is a buddha, a desk is a buddha, a fish is a buddha, a man is a buddha....... Now are they all the same? Is a buddha fish the same as a buddha man? Or is the chair the same as the desk? As you can obiviously see the chair is not the same as the desk, and the fish is not the same as the man.
    Yet they are all still buddhas?
    How can this be?
    Consciousness itself is all so a buddha, but are all things conscious?
    Is the chair conscious?
    So what does being a buddha have to do with being consious?
     
  12. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    You say that "All things are buddhas by there very nature. A chair is a buddha, a desk is a buddha, a fish is a buddha, a man is a buddha....... Now are they all the same? Is a buddha fish the same as a buddha man? Or is the chair the same as the desk? As you can obiviously see the chair is not the same as the desk, and the fish is not the same as the man. Yet they are all still buddhas?"

    Is this a Buddhist teaching or your opinion? Sorry but I don't know the details of Buddhist views on existence.

    Anyway on the basis that all of the things mentioned are conceptual constructs, ideas in consciousness, and the experience of them thus all part of the one mind I agree.

    Also - "Consciousness itself is also a buddha, but are all things conscious? Is the chair conscious? So what does being a buddha have to do with being consious?"

    At the moment I suspect that all things are conscious (with a few provisos) in a particular sense, that a chair is not conscious, and that to 'be Buddha', to let go of the world enough to achieve that state of consciousness, one has to be conscious. However I'm not too sure.
     
  13. EvilPoet I am what I am Registered Senior Member

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  14. river-wind Valued Senior Member

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    If the goal of Buddhism is to eliminate suffering, Dhukka, by eliminating desire, how does one stop desiring the cessation of desire?


    A thing that simply exists without trying to change the world around it is Buddha. It is acting without trying, finding without seeking. You can create worlds without action, if you follow the flow of how things are.

    float downstream.
     
  15. river-wind Valued Senior Member

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    Why is a chair not conscious?
    it is made up of atoms that were once alive, and will eventually recycle into something alive.

    does it make a difference?
    youtouch everything in the universe through chains of cause and effect, as doesthe exsistance of the chair.

    Where does the effect of conscious thought come into the world?
    is it the shaping of the chair that gives the chair it's purpose? is it the chair that effects the world, or the chairs creator?

    how does it effect others around you?
    where is the line where you cause becomes another's effect?


    I would propose that Humans are lucky- they have a chance to logically decide to seperate themselves from what's "natural", if they desire. They can do the un-natural thing for the well being of everything if they decide. To not use this opurtunity to make the decision is the saddest thing imaginable.
     
  16. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    I'm not sure that doing things for the well bring of everything should be called unnatural. Unnatural for an ant perhaps, and unusual for a human. But whose to say what's natural once we suppose it's something other than what we actually end up doing.

    As for chairs I don't know. When I try to empathise with a chair I find I end up empathising with the lower level substances that it made of. I can't get any sense of a man-made chair being conscious. It seems ridiculous.

    I just hope I don't have to eat these words in some future existence.
     
  17. river-wind Valued Senior Member

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    hahaha... the karma of a chair!

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    "Your past life was such that in this life - you will be a sofa!!"

    I would agree that thinking of a man-made chair as conscious is pretty silly. If I thought the chair I was sitting on now was aware, I'd try to fart less while sitting on it. poor thing, it must hate me.

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    or at least those tacos I had last week.

    as for natural vs unnatural, I was defining the word "natural" as what your first instinct may be in a given situation - if you see a donut, and are not feeling ill, your first instinct may be to eat it. That would be my dog's imeadiate reaction. As a human however, you may decide it's better off that you don't eat it, even if you want to. that's what I meant by un-natural. soory I wasn't more clear. :d
     
  18. Canute Registered Senior Member

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    I see what you mean. But eating or not eating the donut requires a decision. A human's decision may be more complex, more determined by mental factors than a dog's. But I don't think this proves that it is any less natural.
     
  19. river-wind Valued Senior Member

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    Good point.
     

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