Real-time Healings and Rinzai Roaring

[Guest guest]

My Dearest Friends,

I went to the neurosurgeon's office on the 4th of April as was planned

for. The appointment was to set the exact date for the surgery to

correct my spinal vertabrae's deterioration, and to locate and excise

the pockets of foreign matter located along the sheath covering my

spinal cord. What was the time frame going to be like? Would I be

having the surgery in a month? In a week? Immediately? Although I had

not been nervous at all prior to April 4th, that morning I was uneasy,

a bit unsettled at the idea of once more undergoing such invasive

measures to remain actively playing in the game.

You wouldn't believe what happened, what the doctor said to me, and

what he showed me. It "appears", and quite literally so, that

whatever was my condition before, the grave stenosis and the bone

deformities, the pockets of air/likely infectious material all along

the spine, well my Beloved companions, they have apparently

vanished. Yep. Your heart's ears and your body's eyes are not

deceiving you. This old world-warhorse once again has been gifted in

being a template-testiment of Love and of God, yes, odd enough it is,

but absolutely true ... of the Merciful, the Compassionate. Whatever

it was that there before, it has utterly and completely disappeared.

Mind you, I saw the cat scans and xrays and mri's taken, and I stood

in front of those pictures with the doctor as he explained and

pointed out the depth of the damage done, and the places where the

lumbar bones were too narrowed, the portions of the cervical spine,

also damaged greatly, and I looked at the places where the dark

pockets of (whatever it was), were. When I went to discuss the

surgery's timeline and details, well, my Beautiful Friends, all those

things were gone, and nothing is the same.

When the old quote "everything changes" comes to mind now, it has a

whole new pertinence and humorousness to it in lieu of these great

changes in my life as I know it, as I have always known it.

Now, mind you, the doctor, he offers up his guesses, like perhaps the

pockets were cysts that somehow now have 'burst.' But you and I know

they weren't cysts that somehow burst on their own. Most doctors

don't allow themselves to go anywhere near the word "miracle." But

how else explain the fact that now my spine is, (as the doctor put

it) remarkably healthy and well considering the 42 years of

rheumatoid arthritis that's been indefatiguably at work. I am so

healthy and so changed from the previous scans, xrays, mri's,

doctors/technicians diagnosis', etc., that now, WOW oh wow, there is

obviously no surgery that's going to be needed to fix me up! Yup.

Can you believe this? Me? Me, indeed. And you know, my Dear Friends,

there's a lot more at work than we will ever be able to conceive. All

your prayers and Loving intentions for me, sheesh, who could ever have

imagined the impact that they would have on what would happen and not

happen to me and my body? All the week before my appointment I had

had a book propped-up and opened out, that I might copy some new Rumi

stuff I'd found in it, profoundly moving Rumi things. I never got

around to actually typing it out, but I read it, repeated it with my

eye's voice often, as it was lying open right next to my computer. It

began like this (and I'm still looking at it propped up) -

"In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate...."

I watched also, the movie "Resurrection" with Ellen Burstyn this

week-end. And Dear Ones, that movie's messages hit me so deeply, so

profoundly, and not in the way it did when I watched it in the past.

I was literally lifted in a bliss that has no name, and no comparison

to. Not in thinking or seeking a cure or lifting-off of this disease,

this pain, but in realization of a sincere Compassion for all those

beings who suffer, for all those living in pain and fear of pain. My

Joy was that I understood entirely, as much as was possible at the

time, surrender to what is, exactly as it is. I had already been

gifted with a Peace so profound, that when viewing this movie, seeing

the great messages of Love and Kindness and Compassion for others,

something inside of me once again ... changed greatly. I don't know

what it is, but I know that somehow, in some way, all of this that's

been leading-up to what happened in the neurosurgeon's office on

April 4th were already in play for this marvelous, miraculous

occurence to become manifest in this spare little body. Oh Loves! my

Dear Friends! God is inconceivably Gracious, and Love is beyond what

we conceive it to be, and please know this - my Gratitude for all of

you cannot find its expression, or its breadth. But I know that you

all must surely know how great my Joy is at how this has all

unfolded. My Friends, my Cherished and Beautiful Friends ... I Love

you so. I Love you all.

And now a word from our truth-sponsor:

Rinzai, shootin' truth straight atcha -

Followers of the Way come from all over to study the Way. I myself in

past years turned to monastic discipline and delved into the sutras

and treatises. But later I realized that these are just medicines to

cure the sickness of the world, expositions of surface matters. So

finally I tossed them aside and sought the Way through Ch'an

practice. Later I encountered an excellent friend and teacher, and

then my Dharma eye at last became keen and bright. For the first time

I could judge the old teachers of the world and tell you who was

crooked and who was straight. But this understanding was not with me

when my mother gave birth to me; I had to probe and polish and

undergo experiences until one morning I could see clearly for

myself.Followers of the Way, if you want to get the kind of

understanding that accords with the Dharma, never be misled by

others. Whether you're facing inward or outward, whatever you meet up

with, just kill it! If you meet a Buddha, kill the Buddha. If you meet

a patriarch, kill the patriarch. If you meet an arhat, kill the arhat.

Then for the first time you will gain emancipation, will not be

entangled with things, and will pass freely anywhere you wish to

go.There's never been one student who didn't appear before me

depending on something. So I start right out by hitting them there.

If they come with a raised hand, I hit the raised hand; if they come

mouthing something, I hit them in the mouth. I have yet to find one

who comes alone and free; they're all caught up in the idle devices

of the men of old.I don't have a particle of Dharma to give to

anyone. All I have is cure for sickness, freedom from bondage. You

followers of the Way from here and there, try coming to me without

depending on anything. I would like to do some testing with you. For

ten years, for five seasons, there's never been such a person. All I

get are things stuck to stems, wild fox spirits! They chew away

frantically at every lump garbage they happen on.I tell you, there's

no Buddha, no Dharma, no practice, no enlightenment. Yet you go off

like this on side roads, trying to find something. Blind fools! Will

you put another head on top of the one you have? What is it you

lack?Followers of the Way, you who are carrying out your activities

before my eyes are no different from the Buddha and the patriarchs.

But you don't believe that and go searching for something outside.

Make no mistake. There's no Dharma outside, and even what is on the

inside can't be grasped. You get taken up with the words from my

mouth, but it would be better if you stopped all that and did

nothing. Things already under way, don't go on with them. Things not

yet under way, don't let them get under way. That's better for you

than ten years traveling around on pilgrimages.The way I see it,

there's no call for anything special. Just act ordinary, put on your

clothes, eat your rice, pass the time doing nothing. You who come

from here and there, you all have a mind to do something. You search

for Buddha, search for the Dharma, search for emancipation, search

for a way to get out of the threefold world. Idiots, trying to get

out of the threefold world! Where will you go?Buddha, patriarchs-

these are just laudatory words and phrases. Do you want to know what

the threefold world is? It is nothing other than the mind-ground that

you who are now listening to the Dharma are standing on. When you have

a moment of greed in your mind, that is the world of desire. When you

have a moment of anger in your mind, that is the world of form. When

you have a moment of ignorance in your mind, that is the world of

formlessness. These are the pieces of furniture in your house.The

threefold world does not announce, "I am the threefold world." Rather

it's you, followers of the Way, who do so, this person here in front

of my eyes who in marvelous fashion shines his torch on the ten

thousand things and sizes up the world. It's he who assigns names to

the threefold world.Fellow believers, this body made up of the four

major elements has no permanence. Things like spleen and stomach,

liver and gall, hair, nails, teeth are simply evidence that all

phenomenal things are empty of fixed characteristics. When your mind

has learned to cease its momentary seeking, this is dubbed the state

of the bodhi tree. But while your mind is incapable of ceasing, this

is dubbed the tree of ignorance. Ignorance has no fixed abode,

ignorance has no beginning or end. As long as your mind is unable to

cease its moment by moment activity, then you are up in the tree of

ignorance.Followers of the Way, I tell you there is no Dharma to be

found outside. But students don't understand me and immediately start

looking inward for some explanation, sitting by the wall in

meditation, pressing their tongues against the roof of their mouths,

absolutely still, never moving, supposing this to be the Dharma of

the buddhas taught by the patriarchs. What a mistake! If you take

this unmoving, clean, and pure environment to be the right way, then

you will be making ignorance the lord and master. A person of old

said, "Bottomless, inky black is the deep pit, truly a place to be

feared!" This is what he meant.But suppose you take motion to be the

right way. Every plant and tree knows how to move back and forth, so

does that mean they constitute the Way? To the degree that they move,

it is due to the element air; to the degree that they do not move, it

is to the element earth. Neither their moving nor their not moving

comes from any nature innate in them. If you look toward the area of

motion and try to grasp the truth there, it will take up its stand in

the area of non-motion, and if you look toward non-motion and try to

grasp it there, it will take up its stand in motion. It is like a

fish hidden in a pond who now and then slaps the surface and leaps

up.A man of old said:The mind changes, following along with ten

thousand environments;The way it changes is truly most mysterious.If

you follow its flow and can perceive its nature,You will have neither

joy nor sorrow.Followers of the Way, you lug your alms bag and rush

off on side roads, looking for buddhas, looking for Dharma. Right

now, all this dashing and searching you are doing, do you know what

it is you are looking for? It is vibrantly alive, yet has no root or

stem. You can't gather it up; you can't scatter it to the winds. The

more you search for it, the farther away it gets. Don't search for it

and it's right before your eyes; its miraculous sound always in your

ears. But if you don't have faith, you'll spend your hundred years in

wasted labor.In the space of an instant you may enter the Lotus

Treasury world, enter the land of Vairochana, enter the land of

emancipation, enter the land of transcendental powers, enter the

clean, pure land, enter the Dharma realm, enter filth, enter purity,

enter the state of a common mortal, enter that of a sage, enter the

realm of hungry ghosts or animals. Whatever place you journey to,

whenever you hunt or search, nowhere will you find the living and the

dead. All are mere empty names.The way I do things at present is to go

about in a true and proper manner constructing and demolishing, toying

and sporting with supernatural changes, entering every kind of

environment but doing nothing wherever I am, not permitting the

environment to pull me awry. Whoever comes to me seeking something, I

immediately come out to size him up, but he doesn't recognize me. Then

I put on various different robes. The student forms an understanding

on that basis and begins to be drawn into my words.Hopeless! The

student concentrates on the robe I'm wearing, noting whether it is

blue, yellow, red, or white. Don't get so taken up with the robe! The

robe can't move of itself; the person is the one who can put on the

robe. There is a clean pure robe, there is a no birth robe, a bodhi

robe, a nirvana robe, a patriarch robe, a Buddha robe. Fellow

believers, these sounds, names, words, phrases are all nothing but

changes of robe. The sea of breath in the region below the navel

stirs itself into motion, the teeth batter and mold it, and it comes

out as a statement of an idea. So we know for certain that these are

mere phantoms.The karma of sounds and words finds outward expression;

the objects of the mind are manifested within. Because of mental

processes thoughts are formed, but all of these are just robes. If

you take the robe that a person is wearing to be the person's true

identity, then though endless kalpas may pass, you will become

proficient in robes only and will remain forever circling round in

the threefold world, transmigrating in the realm of birth and death.

Better to do nothing, "to meet someone but not recognize him, talk

with him but not know his name."The trouble with students these days

is that they seize on words and from their understanding on that

basis. In a big notebook they copy down the sayings of some worthless

old fellow, wrapping it up in three layers, five layers of carrying

cloth, not letting anyone else see it, calling it the Dark Meaning

and guarding it as something precious. What a mistake! Blind fools,

what sort of juice do they expect to get out of dried bones?You rush

around frantically one place to another. What are you looking for,

tramping till the soles of your feet are squashed flat? There is no

Buddha to be sought, no Way to be carried out, no Dharma to be

gained.Seeking outside for some Buddha possessing formThis hardly

becomes you!If you wish to know your original mind,Don't try to join

with it,Don't try to depart from it.Followers of the Way, the true

Buddha is without form, the true Way is without entity, the true

Dharma is without characteristics. These three things mingle and

blend, fusing together in one place. Because you fail to perceive

this, you let yourselves be called creatures muddled by karma-

created consciousness.Someone asked, "What do you mean by the mind

that moment to moment does not differentiate?"Master Lin-chi said,

The moment you ask such a question you show that differentiation has

already taken place and that inherent nature and its manifestations

have gone separate ways. Followers of the Way, make no mistake! The

various phenomena in this world and other worlds are in all cases

devoid of intrinsic nature. They are also devoid of any nature that

manifests itself. They are empty names, and the words used to

describe them are likewise empty. But you insist on mistaking these

idle names for reality. This is a great error. Even if something did

exist, it would in all cases be no more than an environment that

changes with what it depends on.There is the dependent condition

called bodhi, the dependent condition of nirvana, the dependent

condition of emancipation, the dependent condition of the threefold

body, the dependent condition of environment and wisdom, the

dependent condition of bodhisattva, the dependent condition of

Buddha. You live in a land of changing dependent conditions, what is

it you are looking for?And things like the Three Vehicles and the

twelve divisions of the scriptural teachings, they're all so much

like an old rag to wipe away filth. The Buddha is a phantom body, the

patriarchs are nothing but old monks. If you seek the Buddha, you'll

be seized by the Buddha devil. If you seek the patriarchs, you'll be

fettered by the patriarch devil. As long as you seek something, it

can only lead to suffering. Better to do nothing.There are a bunch of

bald-headed monks who tell students of the Way that the Buddha

represents the ultimate goal, and that one must spend three kalpas

carrying out and fulfilling all the religious practices before one

can gain complete understanding of the Way. Followers of the Way, if

you say that the Buddha represents the ultimate goal, then why after

living just eighty years did the Buddha lie down in the grove of sal

trees in the city of Kushingara and die? Where is the Buddha now?

>From this we know clearly that he was no different from us in the

realm of birth and death.Followers of the Way, the true Buddha is

without form, the true Dharma is without characteristics. You are

striking poses and donning attitudes all because of a mere phantom.

Even if in your seeking you got something, it would all be the work

of wild fox spirits, certainly not the true Buddha. It would be the

understanding of the non-Buddhists.A true student of the Way never

concerns himself with the Buddha, never concerns herself with

bodhisattvas or arhats, never concerns herself with the blessings of

the threefold world. Far removed, alone and free, he is never

entangled in things. Heaven and earth could turn upside down and she

would not be disturbed. All the buddhas of the ten directions could

appear before him, and his mind would not feel an instant of joy, the

three realms of hell could suddenly confront him, and his mind would

not feel an instant of alarm. Why is this? Because they know that all

things of the phenomenal world are empty of characteristics. When

conditions change, they come into existence; when there is no change,

they do not exist. The threefold world is nothing but mind; the ten

thousand phenomena are nothing but consciousness. These dreams,

phantoms, empty flowers, why trouble yourself trying to grasp

them?There is only you, follower of the Way, this person in front of

my eyes now listening to the Dharma, who enters fire without being

burned, enters water without drowning, enters the three realms of

hell as though strolling in a garden, enters the realms of hungry

ghosts and the animals but undergoes no punishment. How can one do

all this?While you love sages, loath common mortals,You're bobbing up

and down in the sea of birth and death.Earthly desires exist because

of the mind;If no mind, what can earthly desires fix on?Don't labor

to discriminate, to seize on marks;Then without effort, you'll gain

the Way in a moment.- Zen Master Lin-Chi (Rinzai)

As I Am,

Mazie