Here are the passages from the The Platform Sutra by Dajian Huineng 638-713. (Jp: Daikan Eno) that I mentioned this past Sunday:
“Good friends, since the past this teaching of ours has first taken non-thought as it’s central doctrine, the formless as it’s essence, and non abiding as it’s fundamental. The formless is to transcend characteristics within the context of characteristics. Non thought is to be without thought in the context of thoughts. Non abiding is to consider in one’s fundamental nature that all worldly things are empty, with no consideration of retaliation—whether good or evil, pleasant or ugly, and enemy or friend, etc., during times of words, fights, and disputation.”
…he later goes on to say…
“Good friends, what is negated by the ‘non’ (wu)? What kind of thing is ‘thought’? ‘Non’ means to be without the characteristic of duality, so to be without the mind of enervating defilements. ‘Thought’ is to think of the fundamental nature of suchness. Suchness is the essence of thought, thought is the function of suchness…”
I was saying that this passage is pointing out how to practice—it’s the same thing that Shido Bunan is talking about: “In direct seeing there is no seeing. In direct hearing there is no hearing. This is possible when you naturally become one piece, with no in and no out.” Compare this with Huineng: “non thought is to be without thought in the context of thoughts. […] What is negated by the ‘non’ (wu)? […] ‘Non’ means to be without the characteristic of duality, to be without the mind of the enervating defilements.” In other words, to “naturally become one piece, with no in and no out.”
