THE GREAT BODHIDHARMA SPEAKS, FOLLOWED BY THE ALPHA SEER,… .
Student: But if they don’t define it, what do they mean by mind?
Bodhidharma: You ask. That’s your mind. I answer. That’s my mind. If I had no mind how could I answer? If you had no mind, how could you ask? That which asks is your mind. Through endless kalpas” without beginning, whatever you do, wherever you are, that’s your real mind, that’s your real buddha. This mind is the buddha” says the same thing. Beyond this mind you’ll never find another Buddha. To search for enlightenment or nirvana beyond this mind is impossible. The reality of your own self-nature the absence of cause and effect, is what’s meant by mind. Your mind is nirvana. You might think you can find a Buddha or enlightenment somewhere beyond the mind’, but such a place doesn’t exist.
Trying to find a Buddha or enlightenment is like trying to grab space. Space has a name but no form. It’s not something you can pick up or put down. And you certainly can’t grab it. Beyond mind you’ll never see a Buddha. The Buddha is a product of the mind. Why look for a Buddha beyond this mind?
Buddhas of the past and future only talk about this mind. The mind is the Buddha, and the Buddha is the mind. Beyond the mind there’s no Buddha and beyond the Buddha there’s no mind. If you think there is a Buddha beyond the mind’, where is he? There’s no Buddha beyond the mind, so why envision one? You can’t know your real mind as long as you deceive yourself. As long as you’re enthralled by a lifeless form, you’re not free. If you don’t believe me, deceiving yourself won’t help. It’s not the Buddha’s fault. People, though, are deluded. They’re unaware that their own mind is the Buddha. Otherwise they wouldn’t look for a Buddha outside the mind.
Buddhas don’t ferry Buddhas to the shore of liberation. If you use your mind to look for a Buddha, you won’t see the Buddha. As long as you seek Buddhas outwards, you’ll never see that your own Heart is the Buddha. Don’t use a Buddha to worship a Buddha, and don’t use the mind to invoke a Buddha. Buddhas don’t recite sutras, Buddhas don’t keep precepts, and Buddhas don’t break precepts, Buddhas don’t keep or break anything. Buddhas don’t do good or evil.
To find a Buddha, you have to see your nature. Whoever sees his nature is a Buddha. If you don’t see your nature, being mindful of Buddhas, reciting sutras, making offerings, and keeping precepts are not equal to it. Being mindful of Buddhas results in good karma, reciting sutras results in a good intelligence; keeping precepts results in a good rebirth in heavens, and making offerings results in future blessings — but no buddha. If you don’t understand by yourself, you’ll have to find a teacher to know the root of births and deaths. But unless he sees his nature, such a person isn’t a good teacher. Even if he can recite the twelve groups of scriptures he can’t escape the Wheel of Births and Deaths. He suffers in the three realms without hope of release. Long ago, the monk Good Star was able to recite the twelve groups of scriptures. But he didn’t escape the Wheel, because he didn’t see his nature. If this was the case with Good Star, then people nowadays who recite a few sutras or shastras and think it’s the Dharma are fools. Unless you see your own Heart, reciting so much prose is useless.
To find a Buddha you have to see your nature directly. Your nature is the Buddha. And the Buddha is the person who’s free: free of plans, free of cares. If you don’t see your nature and run outwards to seek for external objects, you’ll never find a buddha. The truth is there’s nothing to find. But to reach such an understanding you need a good teacher and you need to struggle to make yourself understand. Life and death are important. Don’t suffer them in vain.
There’s no advantage in deceiving yourself. Even if you have mountains of jewels and as many servants as there are grains of sand along the Ganges, you see them when your eyes are open. But what about when your eyes are shut? You should realize then that everything you see is like a dream or illusion.
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NOW HEAR THE ALPHA SEER SPEAK… .
Please first study the above text in depth, because it represents the Bodhidharma’s perfect understanding of the Dharma. IT ALSO REPRESENTS THE FACT THAT THE BODHIDHARMA IS A REALIZED MASTER, A TATHAGATA , ONE WHO HAS SEEN HIS TRUE SELF, OR THE SO-CALLED BUDDHA NATURE.
Seeing your mind is everything you have now. Seeing your mind is the same as seeing your own true self. It is really the only thing you have now. Why? You have come to this world with nothing, and soon you will depart with nothing too, not that you really have anything ever.
When I say it is everything you have, or that it is the only thing you really have now, all I mean to do is call your attention to a certain window of opportunity that you have all along enjoyed as human being. The window such that whatever karma has in store for you at this juncture is NEVER too wide. For most of us it only lasts an average of 85 years,– for an extraordinary being, a little longer perhaps… . Once you have breathed your last puff of air, that window of opportunity will be gone FOREVER. For that reason it is only wise to be awake to that opportunity when you still have it.
What is required of you is pretty simple in fact: see your self- nature, know your own mind! Your mind is the Buddha, so to seek outside your mind is like a crow trying to grasp at its own reflection in the well. When the crow flies away, also gone is his own reflection in the well! Seeking outside your mind is a waste of time and effort because absolutely nothing exists out there, nothing whatsoever exists outside of your mind! Everything in the whole wide world: i.e. Dharma, nirvana, samsara, joy, sorrow, Buddha, samsara, nirvana, enlightenment, defilement, the universe, the world, food, feces, sentient beings, sages, tathagatas, Bodhisavatts, Jesus, Virgin Mary, Mohammad, the Devil, the King of Heaven, the King of Hell, Heaven, Hell, demons, the 30 Virgins awaiting your martyrs (or terrorists) in Heaven, Satan, angels, 2nd coming, nuclear bomb, total annihilation of the world, Armageddon, the Big Bang, atoms, molecules, DNA, the god particles, Yin and Yang, man, woman, gay, good, bad, neutral, jihad, forms, formlessness, space, big, small, morality, duality, defilement, sin, clean, dirty, enlightenment, the universe, your neighbors, your enemies, your friends, your father, your mom, your wife, your husband, your siblings, your children, your grandchildren, art, Titian, Knox Martin, Shakespeare, Mozart, Beethoven, poetry, music, science, Einstein, Columbus, civilizations, dynasties, Genghis Khan, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Lincoln, the Holocaust, Jews, Gentiles, infidels, nations,hydrogen bombs…, even the mind itself,– in other words, everything in the universe are but the manifestations of your OWN mind. Nothing really exists, nor do they need to enthrall you in any manner, since nothing is real. It is not just the Bodhidharma’s observation, it is also a truth enunciated by all the great Buddhas and Bodhisavatts before him,– by the Buddha Gautama and Tsonkghapa especially. And they are all geniuses from the human race. They are human geniuses who had walked this same earth as we ourselves do,– not mythological figures fabricated of some idle thinking, forever riding high upon their worshipers’ curious sensations or exotic sentiments. According to these geniuses, none of the phenomena mentioned above are real. Of course no one can prove it by the worldly terms of a cognitive thinking process, designed in the name of science. But why do you need more proofs of such kinds, stemming from self- defeating basis well from the first instance? Isn’t it just one more mental trap to inflate your self-deceptions? You live, you die, and that is all the proofs you are getting already! Isn’t life itself mysterious and magical enough to warrant any of those low- grade, inconclusive, self-deceptive evidences that you have always claimed as first- class scientific evidences, to inflate the ego? So in the final analysis, you must, by all means, see the truth for yourself! In any case, I can only put in this, namely, at the end of a successful spiritual journey, you will definitely find out that only the densest of fools would still insist on seeking a god, or a buddha, for that matter, outside the mind, feeling about your surrounding in total blindness, or frantically grasping at space,– which is nothing but emptiness!
What does the Bodhidharma mean when he says that you will never know your own mind when you deceive yourself? First allow the Alpha Seer to ask you this instead: how do you deceive yourself? Aren’t you deceiving yourself by envisioning a so-called First Cause,– meaning, an Almighty God,– who has created the universe and yourself,– you who have barely evolved from those mouth- gaping, promiscuous monkeys not too long ago, and you are saying that the Almighty God has created a virtual monkey in His image and all that craps??!! Aren’t you deceiving yourself by imagining a Santa Claus kind of character who will come to save your ass from the fire of hell, forgive all your crimes for being a parasite on the planet earth, and deliver you unto the Father’s laps in Heaven, or with Mohammed at Allah’s side, rewarding you with just so many virgins as wives and concubines, or sitting by the side of Jesus Christ in the Last Judgement, with Moses, Mohammad, Abraham at your disposal, and a whole bunch of angels clamoring to be your servants and all??!! Aren’t you deceiving yourself by thinking that without having orgiastic sex,–and VOILA, Jesus Christ is born of the Virgin Mary? Geesus, mafuggar shit!!!!!!!!! who can believe those lies except the stupidest of idiots?!!!!!!!! Yes, there are a million ways by which you can deceive yourself in this miserable existence of yours that you call life,– which is just an opinion! And finally, should I spare those shabby Buddhist monk beggars in yellow robes and such, who are chanting nonsense at your Dad’s funeral while staring at your pocket book greedily?
The great Bodhidharma is saying, you can never see your own nature when you deceive yourself like that. What he means is when you allow self-deception to take place, you won’t have a chance to see your Buddha nature. Why can’t you see your Buddha nature when you deceive yourself like that? Simple: the power of Mara (another metaphor for the unenlightened mind) already has a strangle-hold on you and you can never be free to act. Your mind is not liberated and you are simply conditioned by those craps you called “faith,” and as a result of those wrong actions and defilement your karma can only be getting heavier and heavier and your mind thoroughly fucked !
Follow the instructions of a qualified teacher, according to the Bodhidharma, i.e. one who has found his own mind,– one who has seen his true self; in other words, follow a teacher who has seen his own Buddha nature. NEVER follow one who may be well-versed in all kinds of scriptures, knowledgeable about a million things the Buddhas say, but not wise enough to see his mind, i.e. his Buddha nature! The Bodhidharma is also saying: do not allow yourself to be misled by a blind person,– an impostor, who does not even know his mind himself! Why? because you are blind enough to be led along as a disciple by another blind man!!!!!
Not unlike Matisse’ time-honored statement:”You cannot teach art!” The same can be said about enlightenment! You can’t teach enlightenment either ! However, don’t follow the Alpha Seer, who is a bad example for your kids; or the Dalai Lama, who is anything but a tathagata! Or certain Tibetan, Taiwanese, Thai, or Vietnamese “masters”, who are nothing more than dualist beggars, thieves or con men forever plotting to steal from you! Follow the original scriptures straight from the mind of the Buddha, the Bodhidharma, the 6th Patriarch, or other tathagatas in the journal of Buddhism, realized masters who emphasize the transmission of the mind directly to the mind, in other words, a direct transmission from Buddha nature to Buddha nature!
Once you know your own mind, you will never use it to search for mind, nor using a Buddha to seek another Buddha. In a nutshell, once you know your mind, everything will be set right by itself, every move will be a correct one, every path you take will automatically be an enlightened one; and whatever you do, you will be heading towards the goal of setting your house is in order. Most important, your mind will be set free, liberated,– and all unconditionally!
Keeping this ordinary state of mind well unto the exit of life is vital. When you know your Buddha nature, keeping an undefiled mind, i.e. one that is free of thinking, is in and of itself an unmitigated joy! The only practice you ever need is keep a sane mind from hereon now: i.e. to be aware of every single moment or aspect of your life, watching with intense interest your own activities, like eating, working, painting, the making of poetry or creating of novels, the research science or technologies, traveling, sleeping, having sex, taking a leak,shitting –and what not.
What do the Bodhidharma mean by the 3 realms? They are the realms of greed, anger, and delusion. With greed, your future will be in the realm of hungry ghosts. With anger, the realm of hell will be your lot, and with delusion, the realm of animals will be your fate. Just treat those three realms as the three states of mind, i.e. treat the hungry ghost realm, the hell realm and the animal realm as mere metaphors, since they do not actually exist! They are not real, and like everything else,they are but the three manifestations of your mind!
When you can train your mind so well that greed, anger and delusion cannot touch you in any way, and what that means is that you might already have attained the same mental state as the Buddha,–one that is just as perfect,–one where the seeds of birth and death have been deleted, and you have attained! Your being is like the Void itself,–totally without a cause. When that happens the force of karma is unable to touch you. Why? because you have chopped down the root of birth and death, you have kept the seeds of birth and death at bay. The seeds of birth and death are the seeds of suffering. Why? the root is no more, and the cause for birth and death will not ever arise again.
Without seeing your own mind, you will most likely fail to locate the incentive in keeping a constantly aware mind,– a mind that is liberated of all thinking, therefore, a mind that has ceased the arising of birth and death… . Like Krishnamurti said,” Thinking is your enemy!” Keeping an undefiled mind is so simple: Just watch your thinking all day long, relax, don’t think of fostering merits, good karma or accomplishments; and finally, no attachment!
Remember: only a human being with the right composition and content of karma may enjoy this singular privilege of knowing his/her mind, and that is just a handful of enlightened human beings, one among millions! You cannot expect an animal to understand its own mind,–NO WAY!!!! nor can you expect a Jesuit priest, a Zoroastrian, or an imam to understand his own mind. Therefore you must not allow this window of opportunity to pass you by without a fight!
You may encounter a million metaphors acquiring the language of the Buddha, but simply know that they are just metaphors, and they are not real at all. EMPTINESS is the real name for the Dharma! Since none of what you see or experience as subjects, objects or phenomena have their real nature,all I can tell you is that they are just the mind’s manifestations. It is only when you begin to grasp at them that a big mistake is made. Just fancy a fool grasping at the images of a movie, that is what grasping at emptiness is all about. It is idiotic; it is comical, and a total waste of time and effort!
Nothing whatsoever in this world is real, — ALL is empty!
Simply do not grasp at anything: that includes your money, your properties, your job, your love, your hate, your loved ones, your family, your tribe, your morality, your race, your culture, your tradition, your country, your people, your son, your daughter, your grandchildren, your art, your religion, the Buddha, the Dharma, and what not.
