Elixir

Wu-Men Kuan, Case 24: It All Outside Words

A monk asked Wind-Source Mountain: “Word or silence- either way you cross over into its all broken between Presence and Absence, the differentiated and the undifferentiated. How do I avoid that transgression altogether?

Master Wind-Source replied: I always remember, south of the river, that third month: mountain-partridge calling out, hundred blossom scents.

Are you approached?

Resting in silence. Nothing said, nothing done, no words spoken or sutras read, no teaching given, no beings as teacher or student and nothing other than the reality of flawlessly being the intimacy of heart-selfhood.

Or maybe using words? What’s the difference?

Don’t name it Zen, Dzogchen, Mahamudra or Vajrayana! Naming disappears in the actuality of intimacy of being. The ground of reality is no more or less than this. Even this speaking of it is saying too much.

Do you hear the partridge calling out?

Walking in the sunshine, breathing in the clear blue sky, knowing it is you and you are not anything you think you are, but this. There is no “just this”, no “that”. Fully as you are, as it is.

Do you smell the hundred blossom scents?

Self dissolving, leaving it out of concepts. Feeling the roots of the mountain in your legs and the clouds in the sky; you, yourself are resolved into intimacy with the Ten Thousand Things.

Maybe not? Who cares?!

From The Tiklay Kunsel Tantra*:

“[The Zero-Dimension] has no root cause, is subject to no circumstantial conditioning and no possible recourse; it cannot change. It cannot be touched by ignorance, dogmatic assertion, atheistic denial, sloth or emotional affect. It cannot be stained by eternalistic or nihilistic belief, by limiting belief in existence or nonexistence by fixated dualistic materialism or any other dualistic argument.”

“The essence spun into elixir is the pure presence that is the nature of spaciousness.”

*_{The Circle of Total Illumination}, _{8th-9th century BCE}

_{Deep Peace & Great Love, Issan (author) and Zenho Roshi}

Schedule 3/25-4/2

Tuesday, Wednesday: 6:30 AM Zazen at the Teahouse, Andy opening

Thursday, 6:30 AM, Zazen at the Teahouse, Dokusan with Issan Sensei

Friday, 6:30 AM, Zazen at the Teahouse, Dokusan with Zenho Roshi and Issan Sensei