As I see it, there is not a thing to be disliked. If you love the sacred, the sacred becomes a mere word and a snare. There are some students who claim that they saw Manjushri on Mount Godai. What nonsense this is! They are deceiving themselves. There is no Manjushri on Mount Godai. Do you want to know Manjushri? He is here right before your eyes functioning ceaselessly without change, everywhere clearly perceptible and beyond doubt. This is the living Manjushri.
Commentary:
‘There is not a thing to be disliked. If you love the sacred, the sacred becomes a mere word and a snare’ means that both the disliked and the sacred are just words, imaginary labels which come from discrimination. If we are attached to them, they become snares which bind and restrict us. ‘There are some students who claim that they saw Manjushri on Mount Godai. What nonsense this is! They are deceiving themselves’ implies that such people are still deluded by the illusion of Manjushri Bodhisattva, believing that Manjushri is different and separate from the Buddha and that they can see the Buddha only in temples, and Manjushri only on Mount Godai. You should know that there is nothing else but the Buddha and that all Bodhisattvas, including Manjushri, symbolise the functions of the Buddha. Even you are the Buddha as well, and your actions are Bodhisattvas. In fact, we cannot do other than always see and hear the Buddha and cannot escape from Him even for a moment. The problem is that we cannot recognise Him now.
Student: “What is Manjushri?”
Master: “You are showing him to me, and I am showing him to you now.”
Student: “I don’t understand. Show him to me again.”
Master: “He is on Mount Godai.”
©Boo Ahm
All writing ©Boo Ahm. All images ©Simon Hathaway
#zen #meditation #zenmeditation #enlightened #enlightenment #zenfools #photography
Zen Fools 