When Spring comes, rest your Mind in Stillness and Bliss! When there's NO MIND, open your mouth is already a big mistake!

The best Dharma practice in modern days is actually Chan - why? Because Chan is an 'all-out' radical approach. Chan is vivid, lively and full of dynamic energy. And we can use anything within ourselves as a mean of practice. Chan is incisive and creative. We ourselves are the tools of our Chan practices. And we should ask: "What am I" ? This "I" is NOT the physical body, it is the True I that goes beyond all shapes, objects, substances and forms. It is our Original Face. It is our True Nature of Mind. The Chan way is the ordinary life of our mind, which permeates every fiber and every single 'touch' in our day-to-day living. Within the teaching of Twelve Dependent Origination, when 'Ignorance' connects with 'Karmic Formation'...and 'Touch' connects with 'Feelings'...", then 'grasping', 'cravings', 'becoming' will then appear one by one... Hence 'Touch' or 'Contact' is the root cause of all formations of life. When you deactivate the 'Touch' then all 'feelings' will subside and disappear by themselves. This is how we cut the root of all sufferings, once and for all. If you don't live your life according to your True Mind, then you are bound to be trapped within the world of Samsara - a mundane world fully controlled by Karma and cause & effects. This kind of confused life is actually an endless entanglement between different beings with their own exclusive memories and past record of Karma - this is indeed, a cyclic existence of endless sufferings and problems. We've reached here by traveling through various forms of times and space. We've arrived Home, we are Here Now. We're now back to our True Mind - our real HOME! Within this un-fabricated sacred space, everything is clear and lucidly wonderful; you'll find your True Nature of mind, your Original Face here. Your Original Face is no other than your Clarity and Luminosity; In Chan, we call it 'the Wondrous Mind of Nirvana (perfect peace). ' And where does this Wondrous Mind of Nirvana resides? It resides within the sacred abode of Ultimate Reality, which has no forms and no shapes. It is beyond all labels and descriptions. It is THIS MOMENT that has no past and no future. Only Here and Now.  What is past? What is future? They never really exist. They merely exist within our own imaginations, they are actually our discursive thoughts!   Chan masters and practitioners become enlightened by various skilful means. Some lineage masters just look, "Ah! There's a cypress tree in the courtyard!" - then BOOM! they became enlightened. When the Buddha held up a flower, Mahākāśyapa smiled and attained his Original Face; while doing some mundane activities such as digging and weeding the garden, suddenly some Chan masters became spontaneously awakened to their True Nature. For Buddha Shakyamuni - He attain Perfect Enlightenment when he looked at the star! So I ask you: "What is the relationship between the star and YOUR Enlightenment?! What is hidden in these phenomena that could Awaken us to our True Mind, our Original Face? We need to look within and shine the light of Awareness inwardly - to find back this 'Primordial Wakefulness' - this Fundamental Awareness that is always clear, lucid and translucent. It is there all the time and it never leaves us even for an instant. This Original Face of ours cannot be attained or fabricated, it is primordially exist and naturally perfect. You don't have to make anything to get it - it's yours all the time. You just need to wake-up to this Reality!   In Shurangama Sutra, a person by the name of Yajnadatta became confused about his head when he saw his own reflection. One morning he got up, looked in the mirror, and saw that the person in the mirror had eyes, ears, lips, and a nose, and he exclaimed, "Why don't I have a head like that? That person in the mirror has one, why don't I?" He went running all over the place trying to find his head. He didn't realize that he never lost his head from the very beginning. This fact, this point, is exactly what we need to attain. So while we are doing sitting meditation here – and what are we connected to? What are we looking for? What kind of practice are we doing? What kind of thoughts have we generated in our minds?   Do we still have any attachment? What kind of thoughts and consciousness that we are projecting, creating and manifesting? "Not perceiving a single dharma: this is Tathagata" ! When you go beyond all forms and labels, you'll attain the unsurpassable Enlightenment.   All projections and appearances are actually our own manifestations. They are projected by our own mind - which itself is no other than Shunyata (emptiness). All relative existential appearances come from the ultimate state of Emptiness, and all these appearances will also dissolve back into Emptiness as well. This is akin to the waves in the ocean - whether it is big waves, storm waves, horrible waves or peaceful ones - they will all go back to their source - back to the deep blue ocean."The Illusory body of Emptiness is the Dharmakaya (Truth body)"(「幻化空身即法身」)- so all of these are actually the magical display of our Emptiness, which is ultimately without any inherent existence and solid substances.   When you do sitting meditation, what are you sitting upon? Are you sitting on emptiness or appearances? Anything to be obtained or lose? When you meditate, you're just resting your discursive thoughts, your wandering mind. You rest your mind within the sphere of "un-fabricated care-freeness". This goes beyond all appearances or disappearances. There's nothing to be obtained and nothing to be lost. Ultimately speaking, the appearances or disappearances of our body-mind are also manifestations of our true nature of Mind. Self-arising, self-appearing - hence self-liberating!   When we're not clear about this point, then we tend to have a lot of confusions and attachments, we want to poke our nose into everything trivial and mundane; the stormy waves and karmic winds begin their dramas almost immediately, and we're surely to be trapped within all dualistic phenomena of name, fame, wealth, power and possessions; facing all kinds of sufferings such as birth, old age, sickness and death; and experiencing painful fixation of good and bad, ugly and beautiful etc. When these dualistic grasping minds arise, then we tend to lose our Clear Mind, our naked Primordial Wakefulness. We're trapped In the cage of "Fabricated dharma (phenomena)". Under the pushing momentum of our desires and attachment, we will create all sorts of aggressive actions that harm others (anger or hatred); and perform many naive and stupid activities (which is ignorance itself). We have negative connections and inharmonious relationships with one another – by using our Three Poisons or Five Poisons as ingredients, we create so much resentment, anger, hatred, jealousy and other negative emotions among ourselves...all these dualistic inter-relations are trapping us within the many layers of samsaric cocoon of "right" and "wrongs", "good" and "bad", "I" versus "you/they" etc. We become confused, disturbed and agitated; we are lost and waiting to be saved and liberated. So what should we DO now? It is so simple and easy – just LET GO! If you can Let Go, then everything's OK. You're back Home when you know how to Let Go!   How do we cut-off all these delusions and confusions? Just return tour to our True Nature will do. Back to our Original Face – once and for all! Put it all down! Go within, listen to the Sound of your True Nature – the sacred sound of Silence – and just Rest your mind there!   Within this clarity and emptiness, there's peace and relaxation. Within this scope of Ultimate Silence, you'll pacify all deluded minds and fabricated phenomena! Relax, just listem; rest your mind within the spaciousness of True Silence; attain it, actualize this. Become Clear, Lucid and fully Awake.   You're holding a Lamp of Boundless Life. This Lamp is your Light of wisdom and clarity, and it is endlessly shining and boundlessly bright and clear. It never stops its functions of guiding you on the Path of Dharma. This Wisdom Light is endless and it lasts forever. Just that we're so busy with our mundane thoughts and activities – we never give time and space to this Inner Light of wisdom and infinite life. We have no time to rest our messy and busy mind, so we become so confused and messy, we're trapped and caged. So what do we need to do? What to choose now? Just Stop! Relax, rest, calm down. Let go, become carefree and follow the flow. Be natural and un-fabricated. Open to everything but attach to nothing. Don't hold anything, don't make anything. Just let your True Mind shines and manifests – become Clear and Wakeful!   We gather here to meditate today. So just let go of your physical form – your body is just the combination of the four elements – let it go. Your body is just a piece of flesh and bones – it has no clarity and awareness whatsoever. But within this body, there's your True Mind that is also shining – this is your precious jewel of Clarity, Luminosity and Wakefulness. Treasure it, embrace it. Let it Shine. This is the Inner Treasure that you are looking for. This is what the Buddha called as "The Wondrous Mind of Nirvana, the True Form and Ultimate Reality that has no forms and labels" (「涅槃妙心、實相無相」). No words or language can describe this True Nature of yours. It is inconceivable, beyond all connections and interactions of human mind and languages. Beyond all dualistic fixations of mundane phenomena. Just go inward and find it – attain your Dharmakaya, your Truth Body and rest there. Just like THIS is Buddha. Welcome Home to your Original Face!   How do you go beyond all words and descriptions? I'll hit you!!! I will shout "Ha!" at you!!! I'll do this to kill off your discursive thoughts and wandering mind. When you stop your wandering thoughts, your unborn True Nature will shine. This is how you go beyond all words and descriptions.   http://www.093ljm.org