E. THE SIX MODELS OF THE GOLDEN AGE AND THE NEW DHARMA MASTERS

THE METHODS SUPPORTING

CONTEMPLATION AND AWAKENING

The direct experience of Awakening, which is indefinable, incommunicable, and free from all forms and concepts, is indispensable. The authenticity of this experience of Awakening can only be confirmed by another Awakened being.

Remember: these methods support the meditations and are used by a master for those in residence every day to destroy the power of Identity and Duality as a precursor to the Contemplations.

You can see why practice away from the master is so much more difficult and requires constant vigilance and attention.

I have introduced the Contemplations of Dao (Shen) and Dè (Zeal) in the Seminary for those who are not residents to fill that space, but diligence is essential. The more you contemplate on these and APPLY them every moment of the working day, then the closer and more easily you will advance upon the path.

      The Method of Caodong (Ts'ao-T'ung) 

This proposes a subtle dialectics of five points where Being and manifestation complete and cancel each other out.

We amble at ease in the world, without a care, unsuspecting and without a problem as regards the hidden truth.          

We realize that appearances mask a profound, mysterious, and harmonious reality in which we recognize our true face.        

Things and Nature are born and die in the uncreated, blinding light that is Emptiness.

No more perceived! No more subject! Perception lacks any support, the world is the utmost manifestation of Being; phenomena express their profound, immutable generosity.

What folly to endlessly mention Being or Non-being! Let us leave to the ignorant the passion for miracles: a welcoming house, a soup on the fire... what for?         

A path for those with Acquisitiveness

(Natural Discrimination when liberated)

        The Method of Linji (Lin-Tsi)    

The paedagogic method aims directly at the goal and expresses experience in concrete terms, unabashedly crushing theoretical explanations.

Diverse instruments -shouts, burps, blows with a staff or a fly-whisk- suddenly rain down from the high chair. These manifestations, the meaning of which partially eludes us, act as a forceps on the consciousness of listeners.       

The method proceeds by way of pulling the brain apart, in a psychological stripping destined to reveal the true nature of Being, unconcerned and bereft of its spiritual conceits.       

Would you see things according to the natural law? Do not let yourself be disoriented by everyday people. Anything you come across, outside or even within yourself, kill it!      

A path for those with Acquisitiveness and a mask of Aversion/Natural Intelligence (Natural Discrimination when liberated)

A path for those with Aversion and a mask of Acquisitiveness/Natural Discrimination  (Natural Intelligence when liberated)

          The Method of Yunmen                    

This method uses words as missiles that hit the target, violently striking consciousness. Offensive words attempt to violate the mute consciousness of adepts immersed in disconcerting religious satisfaction.

Personal experience eschews all religious or philosophical references and focuses on the instantaneous revelation of Being. The falling of a stream, the path of the stars, a pot-maker's style all reflect the truth without resorting to an abstract, paedagogic symbolism.

A path for those with Aversion

(Natural Intelligence when liberated)

            The Method of Guiyang (Kuei-Yang)                      

Do not torture your consciousness to know the meaning of the Dharma; its adequate formulation does not depend on understanding. Maintain the unity of your will, stop listening with your thought but listen with your spirit. The ear's function is limited to hearing, the function of thought is limited to forming images and ideas. As to the spirit, it is an emptiness that responds to all things.

The Dharma resides in Emptiness, and this Emptiness is fasting from thought.

 A path for those with Aversion and a mask of Confusion/Sensitivity

(Natural Intelligence when liberated)

A path for those with Confusion and a mask of Aversion/Natural Intelligence

(Natural Sensitivity when liberated)

                       The Method of Fayan (Fa-Yen)                               

With the goal of awakening the adept to his deep nature, it directs contemplation at the sounds, the movements, the innumerable signs that people the cosmos.

Listening and mindfulness eliminate all attempts at rational explanation.      

Closer to the Dao, it interrupts paedagogical discourse and silently points at the absence of any difference between inside and outside.  

A path for those with Confusion

(Natural Sensitivity when liberated)

         The Method of Zongmi (Tsung-Mi)

Huayan practice focuses on the relationship between phenomena instead of that between phenomena and the Absolute.

Everything in the universe is born of itself and the principles of all phenomena are essentially non-dual. This unity is pluralistic. The multiple finds expression in the one.

All things, animate or inanimate, are an expression of mind and are thus unified in the Buddhist Mind. They have six characteristics: Universality, Specificity, Homogeneity, Clarity, Composition, and Decomposition. 

All phenomena are in perfect harmony.

A path for those with Acquisitiveness and a mask of Confusion/Sensitivity (Natural Discrimination when liberated)

A path for those with Confusion and a mask of Acquisitiveness/Natural Discrimination

(Natural Sensitivity when liberated)

                                           Yun Men                           

                       Kuei Yang                        Lin Tsi 

                                                                (Rinzai)   

                     Fa Yen             Tsung Mi                Tsao Tung

                                                                               (Soto)

The following show the dominant personality:

   Yun Men (Aversion), Fa Yen (Confusion) and Tung Tsao (Acquisitiveness).

The tendency of the social masks, learned when the principal trait does not satiate Identity, leads to the intermediate points and each person may be located UPON that line and not necessarily upon the junction.

 At the intermediate points are:

Lin Tsi, Tsung Mi, and Kuei Yang

 A diagonal line cuts the six into two groups:

Kuei Yang, Fa Yen, and Tsung Mi,

to which Contemplation of the Essence is applicable

Yun Men, Lin Tsi, and Tung Tsao,

to which Contemplation of Non-discriminated Form is applicable

Now to complicate matters let us consider the fourth dominating Identity of FUTURE FIXATION.

In the previous diagram we have a triangle... make this in your mind a pyramid and place Future Fixation at its peak.

My own preference and intuition place Huineng and his teachings of the Life Force function of Gladness, Compassion and Benevolent Affect at this peak.

The same now applies, as there can be a further deflection of the Identity in the direction of the peak on the surface of the triangle.

Actually this is just a model and the other Identities actually have transient influences which conceptually may draw the person’s Identity reactions into the interior of the pyramid. This however has little importance for us although it is interesting.