Friday 12 October 2018

265. ZEN REMARKS

265. Master Mumon Ekai says that it is of 'the utmost importance' that we 'cut off the mind road' if we want to attain 'subtle realization'. But what is meant by the expression 'cut off the mind road'? It means that we 'must completely cut off the way of thinking'. And this, of course, cannot be achieved if we attempt to go about it as a mental exercise for, as Sengcan reminds us, 'to seek mind with the discriminating mind is the greatest of all mistakes'. Hence Mumon's insistence on the physicality of our practice. He says: 'Arouse your entire body with its three hundred and sixty bones and joints and its eighty-four thousand pores of the skin'. To this end, sitting in the prescribed meditation posture is a potent reminder that Zen is an embodied practice. 

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