Thinking of what does not think is the essential art of sitting meditation

Lead me from dreaming to waking.

Lead me from opacity to clarity. Lead me from the complicated to the simple. Lead me from the obscure to the obvious. Lead me from intention to attention. Lead me from what I'm told I am to what I see I am. Lead me from confrontation to wide openness. Lead me to the place I never left, Where there is peace, and peace -from the Upanishads- Unless you know the emptiness and bliss inside yourself..you'll be a robot forced by the same emptiness and bliss trying to know itself..by pain.. ...inside your self also..trust me!..said the mahayogi! so listen to the mahayogi..,grasshopper from heaven...

Wisdom for Grasshoppers - The funniest movie is here. Find it

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In silence there must be movement, and in motion,

There must be silence.
A small movement is better than a big one..
No movement is better than a small one..listen!
Silence is all the movement's mother..
In Movement you should be like a dragon or a tiger.
In non Movement you should be like a Buddha.  
-- Wang Xiangzhai(November 26, 1885 - July 12, 1963}

What is referred to as mindlessness is absence of the human mentality; what is referred to as mindfulness is mindfulness of the Tao. When one is free of the human mentality, the mutual sensing of the earthly and celestial is swift; when one is mindful of the Tao, effective practice endures. Swiftness of sensing comes about spontaneously, without cultivation, without striving; long perseverance comes about through effort, and involves action and striving. Striving and non-striving each has its secret; the distinction is all a matter of the absence of the human mentality and the presence of mindfulness of the Tao. After one has reached complete realization of the universal Tao, neither existence nor nonexistence remain; others and self are ultimately empty, and one enters the state of ultimate truthfulness, like a spirit. Here, it is not only the human mentality that cannot be applied; even the mindfulness of Tao is not applicable." - Liu I-ming The Conduct of the Moon and Clouds 

The consistent conduct of people of the Way is like the flowing clouds with no grasping mind, like the full moon reflecting universally, not confined anywhere, glistening within each of the ten thousand forms. Dignified and upright, emerge and make contact with the variety of phenomena, unstained and unconfused. Function the same toward all others since all have the same substance as you. Language cannot transmit this, speculation cannot reach it. Leaping beyond the infinite and cutting off the dependent, be obliging without looking for merit. This marvel cannot be measured with consciousness or emotion. On the journey accept your function, in your house please sustain it. Comprehending birth and death, leaving causes and conditions, genuinely realize that from the outset your spirit is not halted. So we have been told that the mind that embraces all the ten directions does not stop anywhere. -- Hongzhi Zhengjue (1091-1157)

*note*..hehehehe...deep respect for these writers who busted their asses to translate for us..like this Thomas Cleary ....it's clear ..no..?? clearly indeed!..thank you!..I feel clear now in my Cleary clear creative clarity very clear I say..I say very clear clarity form Cleary ..don't be a Thomas!..be a clear clarity  quintessential paramountly clearly Clearly!
I say I feel clear now..clarity I meant ,but Clearly helps me clear my clarity ..see what I mean?.. grasshoppers from heaven..IT"S all about the clarity... so it's obvious you'll feel clear after reading the Clearly..it's because of the CLEAR Mind Factor..it's clear!!
Thus spokenth the mahayogi!
ps..I can't speak more clearly than this....just clear it,ok?..did I make myself clear?..good..kiss:)
Love,
:)
Danny
pps.. gotta love this Man'an Zen buddhist Master ..Manan Eishu...(1591-1654)
did I tell you that I love his formidable wisdom?..grasshoppers from heaven..listen to what he says..he says..don't ONLY forgive thoughts/emotions during the meditation..do it in real life,for real life is ALSO meditation,see?..don't love your neighbor ONLY during the pujas...rituals..or any religious meetings ..but DO as Jessus explained you should do..all the time..you can't hate the sucker afterwards see?...what's the matter if he refuses to follow the spiritual laws?..you think he deserves your hate?..hehehehe...listen..IN YOU..yourself  MUST dissolve the hate..not in him!.....see?..the rest is up to God,after that!..or you think that by hating you're punishing him?..THE ONLY ONE at stake here..is YOU!...and you do it by watching your OWN body energies see?..because this sheer watching is the key!..choose love I say,I say saying by said sayings of my said words,which I'd forgotten what I was saying?? aghh I say..yes....I say love,..yes..I say..I say love the sucker in YOUR SELF..for you are him,as spirit..but you don't know it,I say.
Ok?


ppps.. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cleary

Thomas Cleary
 
 (born 1949) is a prolific author and translator of Buddhist, Taoist, Confucian and Muslim classics, and of the Chinese Art of War tradition of strategy and statecraft.^[1][2][3] He lives in Oakland, California in the United States.^[3]

.................
MAN-AN - An Elementary Talk on Zen
Translated by Thomas Cleary in his ,,Minding Mind,, book....Although the Way of Buddhahood is long and far, ultimately there is not an inch of ground on earth. Although it is cultivated, realized, and mastered over a period of three incalculable aeons,the true mind is not remote. Although there may be five hundred miles of dangers and difficult road, the treasure is nearby. If people who study Zen to learn the Way mistake a single step or stir asingle thought, they are ten trillion lands and a billion aeons away.

You should, simply see your essential nature to attain Buddhahood. The scriptural teachings expounded by the Buddha over the course of his career are instructions for seeing essential nature,when it comes to seeing essential nature itself and awakening to the Way, that is communicated separately outside of doctrine and does not stand on written symbols.In this there are no distinctions between the sharp and the dull, the rich and the poor,mendicants and lay people, Easterners or Westerners, ancients or moderns. It only depends upon whether or not the will for enlightenment is there and whether instruction and guidance are mistake nor accurate. 

Even if you get directions from a thousand Buddhas and myriad Zen masters, if you yourself do not continue right mindfulness with purity and singleness of faith, you can never see essential nature and awaken to the Way. This way you realize your own essential nature by means of your own mind and understand your own life by means of your own insight. If right mindfulness is not continuous and concentration is not pure and single minded, your efforts will be in vain.This right mindfulness means not having any thought, concentration means not conceiving any mental images.  

Zen master Dogen said, "Thinking of what does not think is the essential art of sitting meditation."  

 If you concentrate intensely twenty-four hours a day, the same inactivity as in quiet,principle and fact as one, then inward and outward be devilments lose their ways of getting at you and you get beyond all obstruction. Good and bad, right and wrong, pain and pleasure, advantage and adversity, are shed all at once, the root compulsion by beginning ignorance is severed, and you see the original state as it was before space and tim

"Before space and time” does not mean something remote in space and time, don't think of it as something ancient. It is the immediate experience of seeing essential nature right now; it is the time when you let go of your self and give up compulsion.It should be understood, further more, that invocation of Buddha names and recitation of scriptures are also sharp swords for severing the root of compulsion. Don't think that by accumulating effort and building up merit you will be reborn after death to see Buddha; don't seek resulting rewards of blessings and graces. You should be unattached to the marvelous.As the past, present, and future mind can not be grasped, right mindfulness appears spontaneously.  

Whatever you are doing, concentrate wholeheartedly on questioning the inner master that perceives, knows, and emotes.If your effort is weak, real wondering will not occur and false imagining will be hard to expel. If you want to achieve early fulfillment, brandish the precious sword given by the mind king and march right ahead :if you meet Buddhas, kill the Buddhas, if you meet Zen masters, kill Zen masters, if you meet your parents, kill your parents; if you meet the masses of living beings, kill the masses of living beings. Totally massacre every thing animate and inanimate, all forms and appearances, mountains,rivers, and earth, all times and all places, good and bad, right and wrong, plus anything else that appears and disappears, coming and going through the doors of the six senses and the alleys of the seven consciousnesses. Having killed it all completely, when you turn a flip and appear in the realm of cosmic space, you can be called a real hero. When you get to this point, you will not doubt that Buddhas and sentient beings, enlightenment and affliction, samsara and nirvana, heaven and hell, are all illusions.In Zen study, you should not slack off for an instant. Alerting your vital spirit as you breathe out and in, watching your step as you walk forth and back, be as if you were galloping on a single horse into an opposing army of a million troops, armed with a single sword.As long as our concentration is not purely single minded in both activity and stillness, it will be hard to attain even a little accord. Concentration of right mindfulness should be cultivated most especially in the midst of activity. You need not necessarily prefer stillness. 

There is a tendency to think that Zen practice will be quicker under conditions of stillness and quiet and  that  activity  is distracting, but  the power attained  by cultivation  in  stillness  is  uncertain when you deal with active situations, it has a cowardly and weakly function. In that case, what do you call 
  empowerment ?  Concentration of right mindfulness is a state of absorption that is in oneself twenty-four hours a day, but one does not even know it consciously. Even though you work all day, you do not get tired out,and even if you sit alone or stand silently for a long time, you do not get bored.    
Even though you work all day, you do not get tired out,and even if you sit alone or stand silently for a long time, you do not get bored. To search out enlightenment with principle and fact unified is called genuine study.If you want to quickly attain mastery of all truths and be in dependent in all events, there is nothing better than concentration in activity. That is why it is said that students of mysticism working on the Way should sit in the midst of the material world.The Third Patriarch of Zen said, "If you want to head for the Way of Unity, do not be averse to the objects of the six senses. " This does not mean that you should indulge in the objects of the six senses, it
means that you should keep right mindfulness continuous, neither grasping nor rejecting the objects of the six senses in the course of every day life, like a duck going into the water without its feathers getting wet.If, in contrast, you despise the objects of the six senses and try to avoid the m, you fall into escapist tendencies and never fulfill the Way of Buddhahood. If you clearly see the essence, then the objects of the six senses are themselves meditation, sensual desires are them selves the Way of Unity,and all things are manifestations of Reality. Entering into the great Zen stability undivided by movement and stillness, body and mind are both freed and eased.As for people whose tout to cultivate spiritual practice is with aversion to the objects and desires of the senses, even if their minds and thoughts are empty and still and their contemplative visualization is perfectly clear, still when they leave quietude and get into active situations, they are like fish out of water, like monkeys out of the trees.Even people who go deep into mountain forests; cut off relations with the world for ever, and eat from the fruits of the trees as ascetics can not easily attain pure singleness of, concentration. Needless to say, it is even more difficult for those who are mendicants in name only, or shallow householders,who are so busy making a living.In truth, unless you have definite certitude of overwhelming faith, or are filled with overwhelming doubt or wonder, or are inspired with overwhelming commitment, or are overtaken by overwhelming death, it is hard to attain concentration that is pure and undivided in principle and fact,inaction and stillness.If you are wholeheartedly careful of how you spend your time, aw are of the evanescence of life,concentrating singlemindly on Zen work even in the midst of objects of desire, if you proceed right straight ahead, the iron walls will open up. You will experience the immense joy of walking over the Polar Mountain and become the Master with in the objects of sense. you will be like a lotus blooming in fire, becoming all the more colorful and more fragrant in contact with the energy of fire.Do not say that it is harder for laypeople living in the world of senses and desires to sit and meditate, or that it is hard, to concentrate with so many worldly duties, or that one with an official or professional career can not practice Zen, or that the poor and the sickly do not have the power to work on the Way. These excuses are all due to impotence of faith and superficiality of the thought of enlightenment.If you observe that the matter of life and death is serious, and that the world is really impermanent, the will for enlightenment will grow, the thieving heart of egoism, selfishness, pride, and covetousness will gradually die out, and you will come to work on the Way by sitting meditation in which principle and fact are one.Suppose you were to lose your only child in a crowd or drop an invaluable gem..do you think you would let the child or the, jewel go at that, just because of the bustle and the mob?Would you not look for them even if you had a lot of work to door were poor or sickly? Even if you had to plunge into an immense crowd of people and had to continue searching into the night, you would not be easy in mind until you had found and retrieved your child or your jewel.
from

http://www.scribd.com/doc/69239993/Man-An-An-Elementary-Talk-on-Zen 

or from his interview
http://www.sonshi.com/cleary.html 

Flower Ornament Scripture (Avatamsaka-sutra):(
The Avataṃsaka Sūtra (Sanskrit: महावैपुल्यबुद्धावतंसकसूत्र Mahāvaipulya Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra) is one of the most influential Mahayana sutras of East Asian Buddhism. The title is rendered in English as Flower Garland Sutra, Flower Adornment Sutra, or Flower Ornament Scripture.
The Avataṃsaka Sūtra describes a cosmos of infinite realms upon realms, mutually containing one another. The vision expressed in this work was the foundation for the creation of the Huayan school of Chinese Buddhism, which was characterized by a philosophy of interpenetration. Huayan is known as Kegon in Japan.

In the middle of the great tower... he saw the billion-world universe... and everywhere there was Sudhana at his feet... Thus Sudhana saw Maitreya's practices of... transcendence over countless eons (kalpa), from each of the squares of the check board wall... In the same way Sudhana... saw the whole supernal manifestation, was perfectly aware of it, understood it, contemplated it, used it as a means, beheld it, and saw himself there.^[10]

The penultimate master that Sudhana visits is the Manjusri Bodhisattva, the bodhisattva of great wisdom. Thus, one of the grandest of pilgrimages approaches its conclusion by revisiting where it began. The Gandavyhua suggests that with a subtle shift of perspective we may come to see that the enlightenment that the pilgrim so fervently sought was not only with him at every stage of his journey, but before it began as well—that enlightenment is not something to be gained, but "something" the pilgrim never departed from. The final master that Sudhana visits is Samantabhadra Bodhisattva, who teaches him that wisdom only exists for the sake of putting it into practice; that it is only good insofar as it benefits all living beings.
)

I know all the various arts and crafts and sciences in the world dealing with writing, mathematics and symbols, physiology, rhetoric, physical and mental health, city planning, architecture and construction, mechanics and engineering, divination, agriculture and commerce, conduct and manners, good and bad actions, good and bad principles, what makes for felicity and what for misery, what is necessary for enlightenment, and behavior linking reason and action. I know all these sciences, and I also introduce them and teach them to people, and get people to study and practice them, to master and develop them, using these as means to purify, refine, and broaden people.
on  http://www.sonshi.com/cleary.html 

To nourish the vital energy, keep watch in silence;

In order to subdue the mind, act with non-action.

Of movement and stillness, be aware of their origin;

There is no work to do, much less someone to seek.

The true and constant must respond to phenomena;

Responding to phenomena, you must be unconfused.

When unconfused, the nature will stabilize by itself;

When the nature stabilizes, energy returns by itself.

When energy returns, the elixir crystallizes by itself;

Within the pot, the trigrams of kǎn and lí are joined.

Yīn and yáng arise, alternating over and over again;

Every transformation comes like a clap of thunder.

White clouds form and come to assemble at the peak;

The sweet nectar sprinkles down Mount Sumeru.

Swallow for yourself this wine of immortality;

You wander so freely—who is able to know you?

Sit and listen to the tune played without strings;

Clearly understand the mechanism of creation.

It comes entirely from these twenty lines;

A true ladder going straight to Heaven.-Daoist text -

"The center of the cyclone is that rising quiet central low-pressure place in which one can learn to live eternally. Just outside of this Center is the rotating storm of one's own ego, competing with other egos in a furious high-velocity circular dance. As one leaves center, the roar of rotating wind deafens on more and more as one joins this dance. One's centered thinking-feeling-being, one's own Satoris, are in the center only, not outside. One's pushed-pulled driven states, one's anti-Satori modes of functioning, one's self-created hells, are outside the center. In the center of the cyclone one is off the wheel of Karma, of life, rising to join the Creators of the Universe, the Creators of us.

Here we find that we have created Them who are Us...

Lilly's Law

"In the province of the mind, what is believed to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended. In the province of the(true mind..added by danny) mind, there are no limits."" -- John C. Lilly -

Unless you know the emptiness and bliss inside yourself..you'll be a robot forced by the same emptiness and bliss trying to know itself..by pain..inside your self also..trust me!..said the mahayogi!

The student asked: “A sage's response to changing conditions

is unlimited. Does he have to study beforehand?”

He should worry only about his mind's not being

clear, and not about the inability to respond to all changing conditions.”

— Wang Yang Ming (1472-1529)

To us all towns are one, all men our kin. Life's good comes not from others' gift, nor ill. Man's pains and pains' relief are from within. Thus have we seen in visions of the wise !." - Tamil Poem-