Dear B The traditional Ch’an answer is that the only concern for a Ch’an Teacher is that the Student or Dosciple directly perceives the empty mind ground at all times –
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Dear B The traditional Ch’an answer is that the only concern for a Ch’an Teacher is that the Student or Dosciple directly perceives the empty mind ground at all times –
None of this madness indicates the empty mind ground.
Going places changes scenery in-front and behind…
But perception remains non-purified and shallow.
It is better to say that none of these words contain any structure!
As the Mahayana Buddhist tradition adheres to the Buddha’s teaching of ‘anatman’, or ‘non-self’, this term cannot be used to refer to a permanent self, or ‘soul’. T
‘..the recluse Gotama is a Materialist, who teaches a doctrine of Materialism and trains his disciples in it.’
Through the work of Nagarjuna, the Mahayana movement developed the interpretation that physical matter is ‘empty’ of any substantiality. This is due to Nagarjuna applying his tetra lemma (catuskoti) formula to the assessment of the ‘Chain of Dependent Origination’ (Pratītyasamutpāda), and logically proving that just as the true enlightened state has no-self associated with it; then it is also equally true that physical matter has no substantiality associated with it. Everything is dependent upon everything else, conditioned by everything else, and contingent upon everything else.
‘To understand this developmental process, an assessment of ‘emptiness’ (sunyata) must be undertaken. It is clear that in early Buddhism emptiness refers to the lack of the presence of greed, hatred and delusion, as well the abandonment of the notion of a permanent self. It is an emptiness that marks the absence of delusion. Delusion is no longer present in the mind or perceived in the environment (in relation to the mind). The mind does not create the conditions that lead to the desire of external entities or attachment to those entities. It is true that no further karma is produced but that the karma relating to the world and the physical body continues until it is fully burnt off (at the point of death), and there is no more re-birth. The nirvanic state has present within it certain powers of the mind, and perfected knowledge. This concept of nirvana exists as an escape from the physical world of samsara. It is viewed very much as an antidote to the suffering experienced within ordinary life.’