Quotes about Huang po

The nature of the Absolute is neither perceptible nor imperceptible; and with phenomena it is just the same.  But to one who has discovered his real nature, how can there be anywhere or anything separate from it?...

...Therefore it is said:  'The perception of a phenomenon IS the perception of the Universal Nature, since phenomena and Mind are one and the same.'

As soon as the mouth is opened, evils spring forth.  People either neglect the root and speak of the branches, or neglect the reality of the 'illusory' world and speak only of Enlightenment.  Or else they chatter of cosmic activities leading to transformations, while neglecting the Substance from which they spring---indeed, there is NEVER any profit in discussion.

A perception  (experience), sudden as blinking, that subject and object are one, will lead to a deeply mysterious wordless understanding; and by this understanding will you awake to the truth of Zen.

The approach to it  ( Mind, Absolute, Void, Buddha Nature, Enlightenment )  is called the Gateway of the Stillness beyond all Activity.  If you wish to understand, know that a sudden comprehension comes when the mind has been purged of all the clutter of conceptual and discriminatory thought-activity.  Those who seek the truth by means of the intellect and learning only get further and further away from it.  Not till your thoughts cease all their branching here and there, not till you abandon all thoughts of seeking for something, not till your mind is motionless as wood or stone, will you be on the right road to the Gate.

...concepts are related to the senses; and, when feeling takes place, wisdom is shut out.

If, conceiving of the phenomenal world as illusion, we try to shut it out, we make a false distinction between the 'real' and the 'unreal'.  So we must not shut anything out, but try to reach the point where all distinctions are seen to be void, where nothing is seen as desirable or undesirable, existing or not existing.  Yet  this does not mean that we should make our minds blank, for then we should be no better than blocks of wood or lumps of stone;  moreover, if we remain in this state, we should not be able to deal with the circumstances of daily life or be capable of observing the Zen precept:  ' When hungry, eat.'  Rather, we must cultivate dispassion, realizing that none of the attractive or unattractive attributes of things have any absolute existence.