White Lotus wrote:some have said on these threads that in order to have an instanteneous awakening first one must pass through many stages. i believe that is not so. the mind is buddha, this ordinary mind right now as you have it. nothing special.
Just a few comments from a Zen corner of the room:
The conclusion arrived at by many lineages who take Huineng as a lineage ancestor is, rather, that some students of sufficient capacity/roots may indeed arrive at awakening (i.e. seeing nature) with little or no prior cultivation. The Sixth Patriarch himself was one of these, since it is reported that he was spontaneously awakened upon hearing a verse from the Diamond Sutra chanted aloud.
However, it is also recognized that this initial awakening is - in the vast majority of cases - not sufficient. Seeing one's nature does not necessarily mean one has fully clarified it and cut the traces of habitual delusion. Recognizing that "the mind is buddha" is not itself necessarily actualization of a Buddha's functioning. Therefore, subsequent cultivation is generally required to clarify and embody what one has recognized, however deep or shallow: to return to it again and again, to mature it, and to integrate it with activity. Again, the Sixth Patriarch himself was an example of this, as his initial awakening was not completion of the Way at all: he cultivated afterward, and as you know only arrived at the end of his training much later during private encounter with the 5th Patriarch.
I have not seen discounted anywhere in Zen teaching the possibility that someone could suddenly awaken to full liberation. It is just considered to be so rare that, practically speaking, it's not worth talking about. On the other hand, there are many cases of someone having some small experience of awakening and mistakenly believing it to be liberation. So Zen literature is, in fact, filled with warnings about that.
In general, the experience of recognizing one's nature, however arrived at - seemingly spontaneously, through transmission, with the use of practices such as wato/koan, upon reading or hearing a text, etc. - is not considered uncommonly difficult in Zen; so many methods exist precisely because a wide variety of people could be able to have this recognition. The subsequent cultivation required by most, however, is difficult. In the vast majority of cases it requires a great deal of exhaustive practice. Phrases we find describing the necessary rigor of this post-awakening practice are "breaking one's bones" and "sweating white beads".
This is the part of Zen training that popular books - and derivative new age types- don't talk about much. The moment of awakening, for most, is considered only the gateway to authentic practice, when one for the first time can call his/her practice "Zen". But it certainly is not yet a time to "just live". In Rinzai practice all of this is discussed in terms of initial recognition of one's own Dharmakaya wisdom, which though crucial is still (for most) very far from actualization of the 3 bodies and 4 wisdoms. Tozan's formulation of the 5 Ranks maps onto these.
santa100 wrote:To use that catchy dharma/no-dharma lingo, we can say that the "ordinary" mind can only be attained through "extraordinary" effort.
I would say this sums up the mainstream Ch'an/Zen view as I've encountered it. Hierarchical formulations and triumphalist rhetoric about the Supreme One Vehicle, and talk of attaining liberation in one lifetime, are fine. But the actual ramifications on one's life of undertaking to practice such a vehicle holding forth the possibility of full liberation in one lifetime, are another matter.
~ Meido
