{NGC 6334: The Cat's Paw Nebula}
“If you will now and at all times, whether walking, standing sitting, or lying, only concentrate
on eliminating analytic thinking (mentation), at long last you will inevitably discover the truth.
Because your strength is insufficient, you may be unable to leap beyond the
phenomenal sphere with a single jump but, after three, five, or perhaps ten years, you will
certainly have made a good beginning and be able to go of your own accord.
It is because you are not capable of this [eliminating of analytic thinking (mentation)] that
[you feel] the necessity of using the mind to ‘study Dhyana’ and ‘study the Way.’
How will the Dharma be able to help you? So it is said: ‘All that was spoken by the Tathagata
was for the purpose of influencing men.’ It was like using yellow leaves for gold to stop
the crying child, and was decidedly not real. If you take it for something real, you are not
one of our sect, and, moreover, what relation can it have to your real self?
So the sutra says: ‘[To know that] in reality there is not the smallest thing which
can be grasped is called supreme, perfect wisdom.’ If you can understand this meaning,
you will see that the Way of the Buddhas and the way of the devil are equally wrong.
In reality, everything is pure and glistening, neither square nor round, big nor small, long nor short;
it is beyond passion and phenomena, ignorance and Enlightenment.”
~Hsi Yun
