Direct pointing (直指) is the open demonstration of Zen by nonsymbolic actions or word,s which usually appear to the uninitiated as having to do with the most ordinary secular affairs, or to be completely crazy. In answer to a question about Buddhism, the master makes a casual remark about the weather, or performs some simple action which seems to have nothing to do with philosophical or spiritual matters. (p.77) (查看原文)
Zen, in particular, has always attached great importance to the expression of Buddhism in formaly secular terms--in arts of every type, in manual labor, and in appreciation of the natural universe. Confucian and Taoist alike would be especially agreeable to the idea of an awakening which did not involve the extermination of human passion, as klesa (烦恼/尘劳) may also be translated. (p.81) (查看原文)
...the main importance of the Vimalakirti Sutra for China and for Zen was hte point that perfect awakening was consistent iwth the affairs of everyday life, and that, indeed, the highest attainment was to 'enter into awakening without exterminating the defilements [klesa].' (p.81) (查看原文)
Because the ultimate reality has no qualities and is not a thing, it cannot become an object of knowledge. Therefore prajna (般若), direct insight, knows the truth by not knowing. (p.82) (查看原文)
...that truly to know is not to know, that the awakened mind responds immediately, without calculation, and that there is no incompatibility between Buddhahood and the everyday life of the world. (p.83) (查看原文)
The satori (日语：顿悟) which so frequently follows these interchanges is by no means a mere comprehension of the answer to a riddle. For whatever the Zen master says or does is a direct and spontaneous utterance of 'suchness,' of his Buddha nature, and what he gives is no symbol but the very thing. (p.88) (查看原文)
He insisted that the whole idea of purifying the mind was irrelevant and confusing, because 'our own nature is fundamentally clear and pure.' In other words, there is no analogy between consciousness or mind and a mirror that can be wiped. The true mind is 'no-mind' (无心)， which is to say that it is not to be regarded as an object of thought or action, as if it were a thing to be grasped and controlled. The attempt to work on one's own mind is a vicious circle. To try to purify it is to be contaminated with purity. (p.93) (查看原文)
Hui-neng's teaching is that instead of trying to purify or empty the mind, one must simply let go of the mind--because the mind is nothing to be grasped. Letting go of the mind is also equivalent to letting go of the series of thoughts and impressions (念) which come and go 'in' the mind, neither repressing them, holding them, nor interfering with them. (p.93) (查看原文)
True dhyana is to realize that one's own nature is like space, and that thoughts and sensations come and go in this 'original mind' like birds through the sky, leaving no trace. (p.94) (查看原文)
Awakening, in his school, is 'sudden' because it is for quick-witted rather than slow-witted people. The latter must of necessity understand gradually, or more exactly, after a long time, since the Six Patriarch's doctrine does not admit of stages or growth. To be awakened at all is to be awakened completely, for having no parts or divisions, the Buddha nature is not realized bit by bit. (p.94) (查看原文)
Awakening for Lin-chi seems primarily a matter of 'nerve'--the courage to 'let go' without further delay in the unwavering faith that one's natural, spontaneous functioning is the Buddha mind. (p.101) (查看原文)
...the genuine Zen flavor is when a man is almost miraculously natural without intending to be so. His Zen life is not to make himself but to grow that way......The 'naturalness' of Zen fluorishes only when one has lost affectedness and self-consciousness of every description. (p.103) (查看原文)
...every koan has a 'point' which is some aspect of Zen experience, that its point is often concealed by being made very much more apparent than one would expect, and that koans are concerned not only with the primary awakening to the void but also with its subsequent expression in life and thought. (p.106) (查看原文)
Whereas the koan advocates used this technique as a means for encouraging that overwhelming 'feeling of doubt' (疑情), which they felt to be essential as a prerequisite for satori, the Soto (日语：曹洞) School argued that it lent itself too easily to that very seeking for satori which thrusts it away, or--what is worse--induces an artificial satori......the Soto view was that proper dhyana lay in motiveless action (无为), in 'sitting just to sit,' or 'walking just to walk.' (pp.106~7) (查看原文)
It is absurd to single anything out as the ideal to be grasped. For what is singled out exists only in relation to its own opposite, since what is is defined by what is not,pleasure is defined by pain, life is defined by death, and motion is defined by stillness.(p.63) (查看原文)
When we say just "That" or "Thus," we are pointing to the realm of nonverbal experience, to reality as we perceive it directly, for we are trying to indicate what we see or feel rather than what we think or say. Tathata therefore indicates the world just as it is, unscreened and undivided by the symbols and definitions of thought. It points to the concrete and actual as distinct from the abstract and conceptual. A Buddha is a Tathagata, a "thus-goer," because he is awakened to this primary, nonconceptual world which no words can convey. (p.67) (查看原文)
The perception that each single form, just as it is, is the void and that, further, the uniqueness of each form arises from the fact that it exists in relation to every other form is the basis of the Dharmadhatu (Dharma realm) doctrine of the enormous Avatamsaka Sutra. (p.70) (查看原文)
