Sublime

if Zen originated in China, where did this text come from? If there ever was a sutra that presented the underlying teaching of Zen, this is it.

The division of the text into thirty-two chapters was the work of Prince Chao-ming (501-531), who was the eldest son of Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty. This was the same Emperor Wu who asked a visiting Indian monk named Bodhidharma what merit he acquired as a result of all his religious philanthropy. The Zen patriarch told him, “None.” Ironically,

The Buddha’s advice in the Lankavatara is for us to drink that cup of tea and not to concern ourselves with where that experience fits into some previously constructed matrix of the mind.

Those who know don’t talk those who talk don’t know seal the opening close the gate dull the edge untie the tangle soften the light and join the dust this is called the Dark Union

This seems to be the consistent doctrine of all the T’ang masters from Hui-neng to Lin-chi. Nowhere in their teachings have I been able to find any instruction in or recommendation of the type of za-zen which is today the principal occupation of Zen monks.47 On the contrary, the practice is discussed time after time in the apparently negative fashi

A bhikkhu observes the six sense organs and overcomes the five obstacles of the mind which are greed, hatred, ignorance, torpor, and doubt.

Buddhist teachings are skillful means to cure our ignorance, craving, and anger, as well as our habit of seeking things outside and not having confidence in ourselves.