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Date Posted: 06:48:02 10/06/05 Thu
Author: d - 15 Aug 2005
Subject: Different ways to VOID


Ironically, Void is probably the most misunderstood term. Much ado about nothing… One can see the paradox.
Here are few stories on void.. The Zen way !!!

1. Master of the Law Ch'ung-yuan asked, "What is the Void? If you tell me that it exists, then you are implying that it is resistant and solid. If you say that it is something that does not exist, then why go to it for help?" Shen-hui replied, "One talks of the Void for the benefit of those who have not seen their own Buddha-natures. For those who have seen their own Buddha-natures the Void does not exist."


2. Teachings of Huang Po
Though others may talk of the Way of the Buddhas as something to be reached by various pious practices and by sutra study, you must have nothing to do with such ideas. A perception, sudden as blinking, that subject and object are one, will lead to a deeply mysterious wordless understanding; and by this understanding will you awake to the truth of Zen. When you happen upon someone who has no understanding, you must claim to know nothing. He may he delighted by his discovery of some "way to Enlightenment"; yet if you allow yourselves to be persuaded by him, you will experience no delight at all, but suffer both sorrow and disappointment. What have such thoughts as his to do with the study of Zen? Even if you do obtain from him some trifling "method," it will only be a thought-constructed dharma having nothing to do with Zen. Thus, Bodhidharma sat rapt in meditation before a wall; he did not seek to lead people into having opinions. Therefore it is written: "To put out of the mind even the principle from which action springs is the true teaching of the Buddhas, while dualism belongs to the sphere of the demons." Your true nature is something never lost to you even in moments of delusion, nor is it gained at the moment of Enlightenment. It is the Nature of the Bhutatathata. In it is neither delusion nor right understanding. It fills the Void everywhere and is intrinsically of the substance of the One Mind. How, then, can your mind-created objects exist outside of the Void? The Void is fundamentally without spacial dimensions, passions, activities,delusions, or right understanding. You must clearly understand that in it there are no things, no men, no Buddhas; for this Void contains not the smallest hairsbreadth of anything that can be viewed spacially; it depends on nothing and is attached to nothing. It is all-pervading, spotless beauty;it is the self-existent and uncreated Absolute. Then how can it ever be a matter for discussion that the real Buddha has no mouth and preaches no dharma, or that real hearing requires no ears, for who could hear it? Ah,it is a jewel beyond all price!

The master said to me: All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the One Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong to the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measures, names, traces and comparisons. It is that which you see before you - begin to reason about it and you at once fall into error. It is like the boundless void which cannot be fathomed or measured. The One Mind alone is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between the Buddha and sentient things, but that sentient beings are attached to forms and so seek externally for Buddhahood. By their very seeking they lose it, for that is using the Buddha to seek for the Buddha and using mind to grasp Mind. Even though they do their utmost for a full aeon, they will not be able to attain it. They do not know that, if they put a stop to conceptual thought and forget their anxiety, the Buddha will appear before them, for this Mind is the Buddha and the Buddha is all living beings. It is not the less for being manifested in ordinary beings, nor is it greater for being manifested in the Buddhas.


3. - Fron - 'Hyakujo : The Everest of Zen'
Once, HYAKUJO was out in the fields working alongside his disciples. Just as a certain monk lifted up his hoe, the sound of the dinner drum could be heard.
With this, the monk laughed loudly, dropped his hoe and went to the temple.
"Wonderful!" exclaimed HYAKUJO. "This is the gate to the entering of the bodhisattva Kannon."
HYAKUJO followed after the monk, and arriving at the temple, asked the monk, "what truth did you perceive when you heard the dinner drum?"
The monk said, "just now i was terribly hungry, and when i heard the sound of the drum, i went back and had my meal."
On hearing this, HYAKUJO himself laughed.

On another occasion, ISAN, hearing the wooden gong sounding, rubbed his hands and gave a great laugh.
When HYAKUJO saw and heard this, he asked ISAN the same question as he had asked the other monk in a similar situation, and received a similar response.
At another time, a master of the Vinaya sect named Fa Ming remarked, "You Zen masters do a lot of tumbling about in the emptiness of the void."
HYAKUJO replied, "On the contrary, venerable sir, it is you who tumble a lot in the emptiness of the void."
The Vinaya master asked, "How can that be?"
"The scriptures," continued HYAKUJO, "are just words -- mere ink and paper -- and everything of that sort is just an empty device.
All those words and phrases are based on something people once heard -- they are nothing but emptiness. You, venerable sir, cling to the mere letter of the doctrine, so of course you tumble about in the void."
"And do you Zen masters not tumble in the void?" asked the Vinaya master.
HYAKUJO said, "We do not."
The Vinaya master responded "how not?"
At this, HYAKUJO said, "all those writings are the products of wisdom, and where wisdom's mighty function operates, how can there be tumbling about in the void?"


4. A monk refers to the Zen Master Joshu:
A monk asked, "When all is destroyed in the aeon of the void, will the people still practice the way?"
Joshu said, " What is it that you call the neon of the void?"
The monk answered "it is not anything".
Joshu said, "It is only then, that there is a practice of the way".

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