T.N.G. SIGNS
OF THE TIMES - N.M. November 1,
2005 (#150)
Greetings from
Russell's Remnant: www.oocities.org/dkone_us
The Compass of
Zen
by Zen Master Seung Sahn – Part 1
All the world’s suffering arises
from our minds.
Perhaps the most important reason
for the dramatic increase in the amount of suffering in this world is the
increase in the amount of meat-eating that humans do.
We must attain our true self or true
nature that cannot be found in books or conceptual thought. The most direct path to that experience is
meditation. The Path begins and ends
with asking, “What am I?” When you ask
this question very deeply, what appears is only “:don’t know.” All thinking is completely cut off, and you
return to your “before thinking” mind.
Following your desire, anger and
ignorance leaves you wandering around and around and around.
Buddhism is very simple. Just ask yourself very deeply, “What am I?” Only “don’t know” …
Saving all beings from suffering is
our true job as human beings.
If you keep this “don’t know” mind
always, your true job appears very clearly right in front of you.
Buddhism teaches that when thinking
appears, “I” appears. When “I” appears,
then the whole world is divided into pairs of opposites. No thinking means no “I.”
Even if you read 100 books about
watermelons, they cannot teach as well as one single bite.
The most important thing is to keep
a non-moving mind from moment to moment.
If we have too much understanding,
we have too many problems. If we
completely keep “don’t know” mind, then everything is no problem.
To make wisdom, we must return to
our minds before thinking arose in our mind.
Everybody becomes attached to their
thinking, so they have a problem.
Since all beings are suffering, the
true Bodhisattva is always sad.
Living is mostly an experience of
various kinds of pain.
Nothing happens by chance. When you were born, everything was already decided
for you by the habit-mind that you have created over countless lives.
You make your world. God makes God’s world.
You should not be attached to your
situation or condition. If you hold
your situation, and hold your condition, then primary cause cannot
disappear. It is always inflamed by the
appearance of some condition that you hold, and produces the same suffering
nearly every single time. This
suffering then makes the primary cause stronger. Let us say that some woman has been hurt by men. That experience makes some cause in her
mind. Then if she also strongly holds
this experience, it becomes a kind of primary cause. Then she always thinks, “I am a woman. I was hurt. I don’t like
men.” That is a condition. By holding this primary cause, many kinds of
suffering will always appear in her life.
Her primary cause always crosses this condition. Anywhere she goes, she will find this kind
of suffering in this life as well as the next.
Reading even one hundred books won’t make it disappear, and therapy
won’t take it away.
If you truly want to make your
suffering disappear, you must not make time and space. Put down your opinion, your condition, and
your situation, and slowly over time, primary cause goes down by itself. If you keep a “don’t know” mind – always and
everywhere – then that is already beyond time and space.
There are millions and millions of
galaxies in the universe. Buddhism
teaches us to keep this kind of wide view.
Many people live in a very small world created by their petty opinions
and their likes and dislikes.
Ignorance means perceiving that this
world is permanent.
When does ignorance appear? If you open your mouth, ignorance
appears. When ignorance appears, “I”
appears, and then everything appears: life, death, good, bad, happiness and
sadness. Everything is made entirely by
our minds alone.
Put down all your thinking and
opinions, and see the world exactly as it is.
All beings suffer because they only
follow their anger, ignorance, and desire.
Do not cling to your opinions. Do not discuss your private views with
others. To cling to and defend your
opinions is to destroy your practice.
Put away all your opinions.
If you are thinking, your mind and
my mind are different. If you cut off
all attachments to thinking, your mind and my mind are the same.
If you attain that “before-thinking”
mind, you perceive that you are the same as all things. The name for this attainment is wisdom.
The Buddha taught that the correct
meditation is the most important thing you can do to wake up.
True meditation does not depend on a
sitting position, but just keeping a great question only: “What am I?”
Attaining that everything is
impermanent, you don’t hold on to anything.
The nature of all things is perfect
stillness.
If you cannot control your feelings,
suffering always appears.
All thinking is desire, and desire
leads directly to suffering.
All form is empty, so thinking that
you can get anything or keep anything is a fundamental delusion.
The most important thing is, what do
you want in your life, right now? What
you want in this very moment makes your mind, and that mind makes your
life. It determines this life and your
next life.
If you are attached to your
thinking, then meditation is very necessary.
It is possible to have insight into
your true nature by repeating Om mani padme hum.
Thinking makes things pleasant or
unpleasant.
The Buddha said one thing for forty
years – “Everything is created by mind alone.”
The most important thing is, when
you do something, just do it, one hundred percent.
When you die, will you have net plus
karma or net minus karma?
If you completely cut off all
attachment to your thinking, then you do not make any karma.
Nothing happens to you by accident. Your life has already been determined to a
very large extent by the force of karma habits made in previous rebirths.
You must first make a firm decision
to attain enlightenment and help others.
Part 2 next month…