Hua-tou

发布日期:2016-11-15   字体大小:   

The practice of concentrating contemplation on the hua-tou (话头, which is a response elicited in the course of a koan session) is not intended for eliciting a linguistically rational or logical response from a practitioner who plays the role of a student” undergoing a koan event under the tutelage of a Chan master. The central purpose of such an event is to render the mentality of the “student” completely free of any distractions or obsessions and focusing fixedly on musing on what can be an appropriate response or appropriate serial responses to his master’s oral challenge or to the student’s own “hua-tous”. In case, pending a koan event, the progress made by a student in self-cultivation has already matured him or her for procuring enlightenment and in case a student’s karmic dynamic is in favor of his or her access to enlightenment, he or she would be able to spontaneously or intuitively improvise a response or responses which would be the most appropriate for the thrust of the hua-tou in question and lead him or her to suddenly land on enlightenment. But if a practitioner is tardy in his self-cultivation exertion so that he is lacking in decently-motivated faith, decent determination, or decency in self-cultivation behavior, he can hardly be able, in the course of a koan event, to gain such a frame of mind as is completely free of any distractions or obsessions and capable of musing single-mindedly on what can be an appropriate response or appropriate serial responses to his master’s oral challenge or his own “hua-tous”. The number of instances where “students” emerged neurotic after having attended a koan event is not at all negligible, indeed. They failed mostly owing to either inadequate self-cultivation progress or negative karmic dynamic.(From My Heart My Buddha)

 





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