Showing posts with label Dr Daniel Overmyer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dr Daniel Overmyer. Show all posts

Monday, 5 June 2017

The Ch’an Teachings of the Sixth Patriarch Hui-Neng 六主惠能

My old university research paper about the Buddhist teachings of a famous ancient Chinese monk from the 7th century.  Funny how I wrote this 20 years ago, as an undergraduate student in year four, for a course “History of Chinese Thought”, long before I became a “dharma girl” (in the Tibetan tradition).  

I didn’t know anything about anything but the professor did say to me:

“Final exam, you wrote the best answer, better than my graduate students, on the emptiness question – on the definition of nothingness.  ”

Ha ha:  I was that girl who got good grades in school.  And now, in this our Dog-eat-doggy 21st century, I still haven’t learned all the tricks to “empty” my two mental obscurations – afflictive and knowledge – directly.


Like The Elephant Man, I fight for my human dignity, I cry,

“I have afflictions, but I am not an affliction:  I am a human being.  
With feelings.  Therefore, I am not an object of abandonment.”

This our troubled times, I fight for the dignity of all SSBs,
“You are not an affliction:  you are a suffering sentient being.
Therefore, you are also not an object of abandonment.”

我是有情 、雖然「我」有煩惱、我並不是「煩惱」所以、我不是「拋棄之物 」妳們也不是 。

Lama says, “We are all in jail, our minds, in jail.   Samsara Jail .  You, must get out of jail, samsara jail.  Study and practice the Buddha-dharma.  Your mind, get out of jail.”