This collection of oral pointings to Truth is not for beginners to Zen Buddhism or Buddhism generally. Huang Po assumes knowledge of diverse Buddhist paths. He presents, as true to Zen dharma, simple but profound teaching. To say the least, the book is densely wonderful!
The Zen subsect Huang Po was of taught direct transmission of Mind; hence, one is not awakened through words or practices. He contrasts his dharma-way throughout with the teaching of other Buddhist sects that did not follow true to the dharma of Bodhidharma (India, b. 483; credited as the first Zen patriarch of China, having taken Chan, or Zen, Buddhism from India there).
These oral teachings are nondual. Huang Po employs negation and paradox throughout. He plays with words to offer transmission of Mind, through dismantling conceptuality; as said Bodhidharma, "Freeing oneself from words is liberation." For Huang Po, likewise, conceptuality is the only barrier to entering the Gateless Gate. He teaches that one moment of dropping all concepts would mean instant enlightenment, and he affirms a person is enlightened in one instant; hence, he denies progressive stages to it. Yet, he says, very few go through the Gate, for they refuse to let go of intellectuality. Devotees come to the Void and stop, fearing extinction, he says at one point. "Extinction" would mean the Absolute is a vacancy, not a pleromatic Void.
Some questions, with answers, regarding the dharma of Huang Po -
1) What is Mind? Mind is not what most mean by mind. Mind is the Absolute, which Huang Po equates with Buddha, Dharmakaya, .... Hence, the use of Mind here, and in other Buddhist writings, can be misleading for many readers. The usual sense of "mind" now is what Huang Po would refer to as conceptuality.
2) What is the Void? The Void is the Absolute, the Mind, Buddha, the Dharmakaya, ... wherein is not a lack of phenomena, but the Ground wherein the absolute and relative, as opposites in mind, exists together in perfect union. For Huang Po, there is no enlightened escape from matter. There is a void, one that a person might experience, wherein she experiences a 'transcendence' of phenomena, but, says Huang Po, this is not the Void. The Void has a perfect synthesis of absolute and relative, spirit and matter - to say one is to say the other, so to say neither: such is the dharma herein.
3) What is Buddha? Buddha is Mind, is Void. Buddha, for Huang Po, is not the historical Siddhartha Gautama. Buddha is a word for another word: "Absolute."
4) Celestial Beings? For Huang Po, there is no distinction between celestial beings and sentient beings.
5) Spiritual Practice? Huang Po returns again and again to how spiritual practices are hindering Buddhists from the Absolute. Such practices avail nothing, is the usual posture presented by the Teacher. He does briefly observe that preliminary practices can be preparative, but, based on his dharma, not sensible - seeing direct Mind transmission is available. Simply, why practice for eons to clean the dust from the mirror (a common image used in Zen Buddhism), when the gust of Mind can clean away now, in one moment, even the idea of mirror and dust?
6) Nirvana? Nirvana is not opposite samsara - this world of suffering. They are one.
7) Nihilism? The Teacher sees Nirvana not as an absence, but a harmony. While he, as other Buddhists, did not ascribe to eternalism, he, like them, taught Nirvana transcends the opposites of extinction and eternality, even as Huang Po would say theism and atheism are both, finally, false positions. Huang Po did not teach a teaching the opposite of eternalism, but rather a dharma that has nothing to oppose eternalism to. Huang Po, like the historical Buddha, keeps veering from metaphysical speculations, returning the listener to Nirvana here-and-now, this-and-not-this. So, the Buddhamandala, place of awakening, is anywhere one awakens to the Truth.
A difficulty in this work is how Huang Po so stresses negation, and one could be left with the sense only the Absolute is - meaning an Absolute absent the duality absolute-relative. Hence, we would have a monistic dharma, rather than a nondual dharma. Huang Po leans so strongly into negation, at times, one could conclude the Void is truly a void. As one reads on, the Teacher leans a little to the other side of the absolute-relative spectrum, the relative, and one may feel relieved to find the relative is something after all, just not a something in contrast to absolute or <i>the</i> Absolute.
In summation - a great read, inspiring, informative, lively. I highly recommend this work for anyone seeking to explore nonduality, Zen Buddhism, or Buddhism. This is not a work for persons who are intellectually curious or wish to weave more knowledge-wool, however. To read well this work, this means to invite Huang Po to threaten all you think to be true. Why? For he shows over and over that all we think is indeed untrue, for it, at best, is a hint to be dropped, so one can pass through the Gate that is no-Gate.
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Reviews with images
My desert island book. Hands down.
I have a hardback version but it is indeed a Great Pearl. This is the de facto standard masterpiece of Buddhism: In two sections we are repeatedly reminded that insisting upon grasping at externals in the quest for enlightenment is futile. The story of the warrior and the pearl he wore on his forehead when in battle is the best example of all.The very first Buddhist book I read was Shunryu Suzuki-roshi's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind in 1993. I highly recommend both of these works not only as excellent information and advice, but as magnificent literary jewels in their own right.
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Honest Reviews
When you are ready for this book, this book is ready for you
Reviewed in Canada on June 10, 2017
Honest Reviews
Reviewed in Canada on June 10, 2017
I got this book the first time when I was in my mid-20's and found this book obscure, and frankly a bit annoying. I studied it for years (actually decades) as I had great respect for the person who gave it to me and recommended I get to know it. I must have read it 25 times by now.
Now this book cuts to the point like a sharp knife when I read it and I laugh about how it wouldn't sink in before. It took me a long time to be ready.
I gave away the copy I bought on Amazon, and still use the one I was given - pictured below.
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