Here is a sampling of texts addressing formlessness — from a variety of wisdom traditions — that we’ve recently been studying. These teachings, which exist here as words, are in some ways limited because of the dualistic nature of language. But these words have another purpose. They function more like poems, meant to somehow uncover primordial Awareness so that the familiar conditional world can be seen and experienced as an expression of the absolute. Just as you give up on the possibility of understanding, it comes: “Oh yeah!” It is such a relief that you want to tell everyone, but words still get in the way. This is how discussions have been going in our sangha. Here are a few examples of the texts we’ve been working with in our discussion groups and gatherings:
on buddha
Whoever sees their nature is a buddha. If you don’t see your nature, invoking buddhas, reciting sutras, making offerings and keeping precepts are all useless. Invoking buddhas results in good karma. Reciting sutras results in a good memory. Keeping precepts results in a good birth. But no buddha.
– Bodhidharma, 1st patriarch of Zen (Bloodstream Sutra)
“Menju [transmission], real meeting [of teacher and student] goes beyond forms. So religious concepts, symbols, doctrines fall apart when such a meeting [occurs]. Retracing a religious form, you can never reach it – it is simply past. You are in the present and you don’t return the fallen leaf to the branch. When [people truly] meet, doctrines and forms are too embarrassed to pop up between.”
– Kobun Chino Otogawa
Buddha’s precepts, bodhisattva’s precepts, [are] a mutual recognition of what realization of buddhahood could be.
– Kobun Chino Otogawa
– Bodhidharma, 1st patriarch of Zen (Bloodstream Sutra)
“Menju [transmission], real meeting [of teacher and student] goes beyond forms. So religious concepts, symbols, doctrines fall apart when such a meeting [occurs]. Retracing a religious form, you can never reach it – it is simply past. You are in the present and you don’t return the fallen leaf to the branch. When [people truly] meet, doctrines and forms are too embarrassed to pop up between.”
– Kobun Chino Otogawa
Buddha’s precepts, bodhisattva’s precepts, [are] a mutual recognition of what realization of buddhahood could be.
– Kobun Chino Otogawa
on dharma
All the phenomena of existence are the "object" of meditation without being conditioned by a particular method. Leaving them freely as they are is meditation!
– The Supreme Source (Dzogchen tantra)
And what do we mean by ‘Zen meditation’? Externally, to be free of form is ‘Zen.’ And internally, not to be confused is ‘meditation.’ Externally, if you are attached to form, internally, your mind will be confused. But if you are free of form externally, internally your nature will not be confused.
– Hui Neng, 6th patriarch of Zen (Platform Sutra)
“Liberation is freedom from desire, hatred, and folly”—that is the teaching for the excessively proud. But those free of pride are taught that the very nature of desire, hatred, and folly is itself liberation.
– a goddess (Vimalakirti Sutra)
If you were looking for the truth, you wouldn’t be willing to settle for merely understanding the truth of suffering, or the ability to abandon the causes of suffering.
– Vimalakirti (to Shariputra in the Vimalakirti Sutra)
– The Supreme Source (Dzogchen tantra)
And what do we mean by ‘Zen meditation’? Externally, to be free of form is ‘Zen.’ And internally, not to be confused is ‘meditation.’ Externally, if you are attached to form, internally, your mind will be confused. But if you are free of form externally, internally your nature will not be confused.
– Hui Neng, 6th patriarch of Zen (Platform Sutra)
“Liberation is freedom from desire, hatred, and folly”—that is the teaching for the excessively proud. But those free of pride are taught that the very nature of desire, hatred, and folly is itself liberation.
– a goddess (Vimalakirti Sutra)
If you were looking for the truth, you wouldn’t be willing to settle for merely understanding the truth of suffering, or the ability to abandon the causes of suffering.
– Vimalakirti (to Shariputra in the Vimalakirti Sutra)
on sangha
Ananda, the Buddha has no such idea that it is he who should lead the community or that the community depends upon him. So what instructions should he have to give respecting the community? …
Therefore, Ananda, be islands [alternatively, lamps] unto yourselves, be a refuge unto yourselves, with no other refuge. Let the dhamma be your island, let the dhamma be your refuge, with no other refuge.
– Buddha (according to the Mahaparinibbana Sutta
[Thus the Tathagata ensured that the sangha would outlast the life of any individual teacher, and confirmed that enlightenment is not received, but primordial]
Therefore, Ananda, be islands [alternatively, lamps] unto yourselves, be a refuge unto yourselves, with no other refuge. Let the dhamma be your island, let the dhamma be your refuge, with no other refuge.
– Buddha (according to the Mahaparinibbana Sutta
[Thus the Tathagata ensured that the sangha would outlast the life of any individual teacher, and confirmed that enlightenment is not received, but primordial]
phoenix heart
Phoenix Heart exists to create a community dedicated to exploring, actualizing and disseminating Kobun Chino Otogawa's teachings about the formless heart of Zen Buddhism, as well as the legacies of other bodhisattva ancestors in Kobun’s lineage and parallel traditions.
In keeping with the words of the Buddha memorialized in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta (quoted above), Phoenix Heart is a sangha with no single leader. Kobun's formulation of "sangha" includes all people and indeed all phenomena in the conditional universe. In other words, sangha is dharma. In keeping with the bodhisattva vow, we have a responsibility of caring and intimate engagement with the realization of our fellow sangha members. We are honored to count among our members a number of priests ordained in the stream of Kobun’s Soto Zen lineage and a teacher, Ian Forsberg, with transmission in that lineage. We are also affiliated with several temples. But we try not to attach to title, achievement or doctrine, and we look to all members of our sangha for active, caring engagement.
We welcome as members anyone, from any or no spiritual lineage, who embraces our aspirational values — even as we recognize that these are only words, an allusion to non-conditional awareness:
In keeping with the words of the Buddha memorialized in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta (quoted above), Phoenix Heart is a sangha with no single leader. Kobun's formulation of "sangha" includes all people and indeed all phenomena in the conditional universe. In other words, sangha is dharma. In keeping with the bodhisattva vow, we have a responsibility of caring and intimate engagement with the realization of our fellow sangha members. We are honored to count among our members a number of priests ordained in the stream of Kobun’s Soto Zen lineage and a teacher, Ian Forsberg, with transmission in that lineage. We are also affiliated with several temples. But we try not to attach to title, achievement or doctrine, and we look to all members of our sangha for active, caring engagement.
We welcome as members anyone, from any or no spiritual lineage, who embraces our aspirational values — even as we recognize that these are only words, an allusion to non-conditional awareness:
- Loving the dharma, we encourage one another in realization of our primordial Buddha nature
- Loving one another, our sangha is a refuge where we are supported in our practice and challenged in our delusions
- In the bodhisattva spirit, our language and actions are marked with self-reflection, kindness and sincerity
- Respecting the forms and structures of practice without attaching to them, gathering in sangha is returning home
- Finding and sharing wisdom in sangha, we carry lineage through all of our relations, and we seek to connect those lines to others