Post by JustaWhistleStop on Jun 12, 2024 19:22:27 GMT
As I read through my pdf copy of Yuanwu's letters, I find areas that were highlighted in yellow by an unknown hand. I'm surprised to see how much their thoughts line up with mine, and I think others', thinking. I've quoted a few of these below (along with the surrounding passages for context). I hope they provide a bit of insight for you, as they have for me. (The italics are mine)
"An absolute reality that contains all relative realities" is a statement loaded with so many possibilities. It reminds me of the multiverse, where we might actually exist in many dimensions at once. But I think the Cleary brothers are talking more about mixed realities where our existence is multi layered, with many realities that intertwine, even overlap, with our own. In other words, our reality is not the only one out there.
That our basic essence is with us always, waiting to be activated and brought to life, is what I've found to be true in my life, though with many false starts. As I mentioned in my introduction, I've been interested in the concept of Zen since I was a teen, and had many seeming satoris, but none of that remained with me. I think it is basically due to being unaware of the possibilities of such awakenings, but also due to unpreparedness when faced with the fear of stepping off the hundred-foot pole. We are in a continuous awakened state, we just need to become aware of it. Habit energies are hard to break.
We're not Darwinian apemen, condemned to an existence of blindly grasping at material wealth and pleasures, only to get kicked and beaten as we climb an imaginary ladder to success. Neither are we living on a stage where we need to prove ourselves to the gods, in order to live in a reward realm. We are wise apes (a nod to SagaciousSimian) who have gained a unique awareness, that we have the ability to escape death and suffering, after these eons spent in trial and error.
True religion is by nature multiform; it consists of whatever practices and techniques and perspectives are effective in awakening the people of particular times and places and restoring their awareness of reality-in-itself, an absolute reality that contains all relative realities, without their getting trapped in any of their limited perspectives. No particular technique is worshipped as a panacea; all techniques are no more than expedient means employed by expert teachers to meet the specific needs of specific seekers.
The Zen tradition, like all of Mahayana Buddhism, is invincibly optimistic about human possibilities—our true identity, our inherent buddha nature, can never be destroyed. It is our basic essence, and it is with us always, waiting to be activated and brought to life. “The sword that kills is the sword that brings life,” runs an old Zen saying. The sword of wisdom that cuts away the conditioning and contrived activities that make up our false personality is what frees us and brings our enlightened potential out into the open.
The Mahayana seers did not agree with the modern materialists that we are basically animals forced by the demands of civilization to pit our feeble rationality and precarious moral sense against our submerged yet implacable instinctual drives. Nor did the Mahayana teachers follow the dualistic religions in seeing earthly life as an arena of sin and temptation where humankind is tested to qualify for a heavenly afterlife. -J. C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary - Translator's Introduction - The Zen Letters of Yuanwu
