/lit/ - Literature

I study the western classics mostly but want to also understand other nations deep culture and folklore. Does anyone have any good books or charts about Chinese culture?

Q. I have left my home to become a monk, and my aspiration is to attain Buddhahood. How should I use my mind?
A. Buddhahood is attained when there is no mind which is to be used for the task.
Q. When there is no mind to be used for the task, who can ever attain Buddhahood?
A. By no-mind the task is accomplished by itself. Buddha, too, has no mind.
Q. The Buddha has wonderful ways and knows how to deliver all beings. If he had no mind, who would ever deliver all beings?
A. To have no mind means to deliver all beings. If he sees any being who is to be delivered he has a mind (yu-hsin), and is surely subject to birth and death.
Q.No-mind-ness is then already here, and how was it that Sakyamuni appeared in the world and left behind ever so many sermons? Is this a fiction?
A. With all the teachings left by him, the Buddha is wu-hsin (no-mind, non-conscious / beyond consciousness).
Q. If all his teachings come from his no-mind-ness, they must also be no-teachings.
A. To preach is not to preach, and not to preach is to preach.
Q. If his teachings come out of his no-mind-ness, is my working karma the ourcome of cherishing the idea of a mind (yu-hsin)?
A. In no-mind-ness there is no karma. But as long as you refer to working out your karma, karma is already here, and your mind is subjected to birth and death. How then can there be no-mind-ness in you?
Q. If no-mind-ness means Buddhahood, has Your Reverence already attained Buddhahood, or not?
A. When mind is not (wu), who talks about attaining Buddhahood? To think that there is something called Buddhahood which is to be attained, this is cherishing the idea of a mind (yu-hsin); to cherish the idea of a mind is an attempt to accomplish something that flows out ; this being so, there is no no-mind-ness here.
Q. If there is no Buddhahood to be attained, has Your Reverence the Buddha-function (dhyana-prajna)?
A. Where mind itself is not, whence its functioning?
Q. One is then lost in outer no-ness (wu); may this not be an absolutely nihilistic view?
A. From the first there is no viewer, no viewing, and no viewed; and who says this to be nihilist?
Q. To say that from the first nothing is, is this not falling into emptiness?
A. Even emptiness is not, and where is the falling?
Q. Both subject and object are negated (wu). Suppose a man were all of a sudden to make his appearance here and cut off your head with a sword. Is this to be considered real (yu) or not real (wu)?
A. This is not real.
Q. Pain or no pain?
A. Pain too is not real.
Q. Pain not being real, in what path of existence would you be born after death?
A. No death, no birth, and no path.
Q. Having already attained the state of absolute no-ness, one is perfect master of oneself; but how would you use the mind (yung-hsin), when hunger and cold assail you?
A. When hungry, I eat, and when cold I put on more clothes.
Q. If you are aware of hunger and cold, you have a mind (yung-hsin).

Why aren't you reading chinese philosophy RIGHT NOW, /lit/?

Can anyone find me a copy of Huanzhulouzhu's books? Trying to get into OG Xianxia

>Being still, they do nothing, and once thoroughly non-doing, all demands fall rather on the busy-bodies.
>To a mind that is still the whole universe surrenders
>Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

TaoNEETs, I kneel...

>Being still, they do nothing, and once thoroughly non-doing, all demands fall rather on the busy-bodies.

>Gent Wholeweave went to see Laozi, asking, "I had heard that you, sir, are a sage. I have thus not shirked the long journey that brought me here, wanting only to see you, finding new lodgings a hundred nights in a row and walking until the soles of my feet were calloused, never daring to rest. But now that I have met you, I see that you are no sage! It is as if the rat-hives are brimming over with your discarded leftover food, while you abandon to their own devices those who are lost on the side roads. That shows a real lack of human-kindness. Here you have endless provisions of both the raw and the cooked stretched out before you, and yet you hoard and gather it to yourself, giving it no recognizable shape."
>Laozi was silent, giving no reply.
-Zhuangzi

>>20258684
this nigga's never heard of confucius lmao

>"He has attained perfect impassibility; life and death are equally indifferent to him, the collapse of the universe would cause him no emotion. By dint of search, he has reached the immutable truth, the unique universal Principle. He lets all beings evolve according to their destinies ... The outward sign of this inner state is imperturbability: not that of the hero who hurls himself alone, for love of glory, against an army in line of battle, but that of the spirit, which, higher than heaven, earth and all beings, dwells in a body to which it is indifferent, taking no account of what its sense convey to it, and knowing all by global knowledge in its motionless unity. That spirit, absolutely independent, is the master of men; if he cared to call them all together in their multitude, they would all rally on the appointed day; but he has no desire for their service"
- chapter 5

I prefer Confucius over Lao Tzu