| | Author: msj123
Jackson,
I agree. I don't know how many times it was pointed out to me, but I thought, "No, it's too simple." So like most, I had to go a long, hard way to find something very simple. To put it in a Zen language, it was as though I had to experience of series of small insights before a very big one, but the big one was not different from the small one. What was different was not the insight, but the depth of the insight. Having discovered the true north, it is easy to cultivate. It is also easy to understand scriptures of all different traditions.
I like how Chinul describes it:
"If a real teacher points out a way of entry for you, and for a single instant you turn your attention around, you see your original essence. This essence originally has no afflictions, uncontaminated wisdom is inherently complete in it. Then you are no different from the Buddhas, thus it is called sudden enlightenment.
As for gradual practice, having suddenly realized fundamental essence, no different from the Buddha, beginningless mental habits are hard to get rid of all at once. Therefore one practices cultivation based on enlightenment, gradually cultivating the attainment to perfection, nurturing the embryo of sagehood to maturity. Eventually, after a long time, one becomes a sage, therefore it is called gradual practice. It is like an infant, which has all the normal faculties of birth, but as yet undeveloped, only with the passage of years does it become an adult."
--- Chinul, Secrets of Cultivating the Mind, trans. Thomas Cleary
Matt |