One mind

[Guest guest]

Huang-po

 

 

All Buddhas and all ordinary beings are nothing but the one mind.

This mind is beginningless and endless, unborn and indestructible.

It has no color or shape, neither exists nor doesn't exist, isn't

old or new, long or short, large or small, since it transcends all

measures, limits, names, and comparisons. It is what you see in

front of you.

 

Start to think about it and immediately you are mistaken. It is

like the boundless void, which can't be fathomed or measured. The

one mind is the Buddha, and there is no distinction between Buddha

and ordinary beings, except that ordinary beings are attached to

forms and thus seek for Buddhahood outside themselves. By this very

seeking they lose it, since they are using Buddha to seek for

Buddha, using mind to seek for mind. Even if they continue for a

million eons, they will never be able to find it. They don't know

that all they have to do is put a stop to conceptual thinking, and

the Buddha will appear before them, because this mind is the Buddha

and the Buddha is all living beings. It is not any less for being

manifested in ordinary things, nor any greater for being manifested

in Buddhas.

 

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This pure mind, which is the source of all things, shines forever

with the radiance of its own perfection. But most people are not

aware of it, and think that mind is just the faculty that sees,

hears, feels, and knows. Blinded by their own sight, hearing,

feeling, and knowing, they don't perceive the radiance of the

source. If they could eliminate all conceptual thinking, this

source would appear, like the sun rising through the empty sky and

illuminating the whole universe. Therefore, you students of the Tao

who seek to understand through seeing, hearing, feeling, and

knowing, when your perceptions are cut off, your way to mind will be

cut off and you will find nowhere to enter. Just realize that

although mind is manifested in these perceptions, it is neither part

of them nor separate from them. You shouldn't try to analyze these

perceptions, or think about them at all; but you shouldn't seek the

one mind apart from them. Don't hold on to them or leave them

behind or dwell in them or reject them. Above, below, and all

around you, all things spontaneously exist, because there is nowhere

outside the Buddha mind.