Enlightenment is a human experience, knowing clearly that all experiences are impermanent, without self, empty. That no matter what occurs within the six sensory areas, they all just come and go. The problem is that we imagine this and that as real, independent and permanent - that is, we reify experiences, idealise self and things - and so grasp at them, want to keep them, or get rid of them. This is falling into hope and fear, attachment and rejection, love and hate. Thus we end up always dissatisfied as reality does not match our ideas. And so zazen is "When various thoughts arise in your mind, do not become caught up by them or struggle with them; neither pursue nor try to escape from them. Just leave thoughts alone, allowing them to come up and go away freely." as taught on the Soto Zen website. Or as Okumura - disciple of Uchiyama - writes: "In zazen we simply allow any thought, feeling or emotion to come up and then we simply let them go away; we actually do nothing." What more do you think should be there? What else could there be to be realised but the realm of complete freedom?
Linji said, "You who come here from here and there all have a mind to seek buddha, to seek dharma, to seek emancipation, to seek escape from the three realms. Foolish fellows! When you’ve left the three realms where would you go?"
Dogen writes in the Bendowa: "How could we say, on the contrary, that the body is mortal but the mind is eternal? Does that not violate right reason? Furthermore, we should realize that living-and dying is just nirvana; [Buddhists] have never discussed nirvana outside of living-and-dying."
Although there are various Chan teachers who say that there is a true self and a real mind, it is a mistake to take it as something separate and independent, because then it would have nothing to do with life. When there is talk about buddha-mind as the pure self, it is just the natural knowing and aware quality that is without attachment.
Jinul writes in the Secrets of Cultivating the Mind: "In the womb, it is called the body. In society, it is called the person. In the eyes, it is called seeing. In the ears, it is called hearing. In the nose, it distinguishes scents. In the tongue, it takes. In the hands, it grabs and holds. In the feet, it walks and runs. It manifests all over, including everything; countless worlds are collected in a single atom. Perceptives know this is the Buddha-nature the essence of enlightenment. Those who do not know call it the soul."
The reason Bankei calls it the Unborn is because it is not born as this or that sate of mind. That unmoved mind is the wisdom that sees emptiness. But it is not outside of this everyday world. Everybody uses this mind. It's just that they believe that it is this or that, that there is a permanent perceiver and doer. But it is quite the opposite.
All beings have buddha-nature, since it is nothing else but the awareness that makes us all sentient. The mistake is to believe that awareness is substantial, while actually it is empty. There is no mind beyond appearances. Awakening is awakening to this.
When it comes to being called eternal, there are two things to consider here. One is the Platform Sutra where Huineng corrects a monk, saying that appearances are what eternal and buddha-nature is impermanent. The second is that essence and function - to use expressions common in Zen - are not two. In fact, the highest level in Huayan/Kegon is the interpenetration/non-obstruction of phenomena with phenomena. This is what Nagarjuna talks about when he says that emptiness and dependent origination are one and the same. This is one the Heart Sutra says that the aggregates and emptiness are no different. Dogen talks a lot about this, or rather he almost always talks about this.
It's not just the past and the future mind that cannot be grasped, but the present mind is also ungraspable. Finally, a nice quote from Dogen's Kuge, on there being nothing beyond illusory flowers:
"Because [stupid people] attach to this theory, they have concluded that the triple world, the six states, the existence of the buddha-nature, and the nonexistence of the buddha-nature all do not exist, but are deludedly seen to exist. They excitedly consider that if we could stop this deluded cloudedness of the eyes, we would not see this floweriness in space, and this is why we say that “space is originally without flowers."
Linji said, "You who come here from here and there all have a mind to seek buddha, to seek dharma, to seek emancipation, to seek escape from the three realms. Foolish fellows! When you’ve left the three realms where would you go?"
Dogen writes in the Bendowa: "How could we say, on the contrary, that the body is mortal but the mind is eternal? Does that not violate right reason? Furthermore, we should realize that living-and dying is just nirvana; [Buddhists] have never discussed nirvana outside of living-and-dying."
Although there are various Chan teachers who say that there is a true self and a real mind, it is a mistake to take it as something separate and independent, because then it would have nothing to do with life. When there is talk about buddha-mind as the pure self, it is just the natural knowing and aware quality that is without attachment.
Jinul writes in the Secrets of Cultivating the Mind: "In the womb, it is called the body. In society, it is called the person. In the eyes, it is called seeing. In the ears, it is called hearing. In the nose, it distinguishes scents. In the tongue, it takes. In the hands, it grabs and holds. In the feet, it walks and runs. It manifests all over, including everything; countless worlds are collected in a single atom. Perceptives know this is the Buddha-nature the essence of enlightenment. Those who do not know call it the soul."
The reason Bankei calls it the Unborn is because it is not born as this or that sate of mind. That unmoved mind is the wisdom that sees emptiness. But it is not outside of this everyday world. Everybody uses this mind. It's just that they believe that it is this or that, that there is a permanent perceiver and doer. But it is quite the opposite.
All beings have buddha-nature, since it is nothing else but the awareness that makes us all sentient. The mistake is to believe that awareness is substantial, while actually it is empty. There is no mind beyond appearances. Awakening is awakening to this.
When it comes to being called eternal, there are two things to consider here. One is the Platform Sutra where Huineng corrects a monk, saying that appearances are what eternal and buddha-nature is impermanent. The second is that essence and function - to use expressions common in Zen - are not two. In fact, the highest level in Huayan/Kegon is the interpenetration/non-obstruction of phenomena with phenomena. This is what Nagarjuna talks about when he says that emptiness and dependent origination are one and the same. This is one the Heart Sutra says that the aggregates and emptiness are no different. Dogen talks a lot about this, or rather he almost always talks about this.
It's not just the past and the future mind that cannot be grasped, but the present mind is also ungraspable. Finally, a nice quote from Dogen's Kuge, on there being nothing beyond illusory flowers:
"Because [stupid people] attach to this theory, they have concluded that the triple world, the six states, the existence of the buddha-nature, and the nonexistence of the buddha-nature all do not exist, but are deludedly seen to exist. They excitedly consider that if we could stop this deluded cloudedness of the eyes, we would not see this floweriness in space, and this is why we say that “space is originally without flowers."
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