Teaching You Zazen 13: What Are the Four Great Elements
2007-11-01 23:21:23
Just got back to the hotel, turned on the TV, and heard some garbage professor from Tsinghua saying the "Four Greats" in "the Four Greats are all empty" refers to East, South, West, and North. Tsinghua — that's about their level. Forgive him.
What are the Four Great Elements? Earth-great, Fire-great, Water-great, and Wind-great. Generally, unless your meditation has reached the corresponding stage, you won't know what the true Earth-great, Fire-great, Water-great, and Wind-great really are. Note that most books about Buddhism are written by boring intellectuals who have absolutely no actual cultivation practice, recklessly making up interpretations. Of course, when even a tedious person like Hu Shi dares to talk about Chan Buddhism, it's no surprise there are so many such people.
Meditative concentration (dhyāna-samādhi) and Chan are not the same thing, and meditative concentration is not so-called "contemplative cultivation." Even if you memorize the entire Buddhist encyclopedia, it has nothing to do with actual practice. What we discuss here is real, hands-on cultivation — there is not the slightest room for faking it.
Our entire observable physical world is essentially only the coarse portion of Earth-great, Fire-great, Water-great, and Wind-great. Without reaching the First Dhyāna, one cannot directly verify Earth-great; without reaching the Second Dhyāna, one cannot directly verify Fire-great; without reaching the Third Dhyāna, one cannot directly verify Water-great; without reaching the Fourth Dhyāna, one cannot directly verify Wind-great.
Note that the Four Great Elements have nothing to do with the Five Phases. The Five Phases do not extend beyond the scope of Earth-great. Don't assume that water is Water-great or that wind is Wind-great — the Four Greats are not something like chemical elements. Even less are they what those garbage philosophy professors claim, that the Four Greats relate to some primitive "-ism" or another. Furthermore, one cannot simply say that hardness belongs to Earth-great, moisture belongs to Water-great, warmth belongs to Fire-great, or movement belongs to Wind-great.
The human body and the world in reality are all entanglements of the coarse portions of the Four Greats. The Four Greats must be directly verified to be known. The scope of what science studies mostly does not go beyond Earth-great. As for the coarse portions of the other three entangled Greats, modern science still knows very little about them.
Our illnesses are essentially all caused by imbalance of the Four Greats. And the differences in climate across regions on Earth are essentially caused by the similarities and differences in the Four-Great structures created by different collective karma structures. Therefore, during cultivation, people from different places must first understand the bias and emphasis of the local Four-Great structure when adjusting their bodies.
Zazen is not just an activity taking place in this skin-bag alone. When you sit there in meditation, heaven and earth move with you — all your karma, all your collective karma are present together. This is not a matter of boldness or ambition; it is the most concrete, most real truth. It's just that ordinary people, deluded by the six-sense realm obtained through their karmic retribution, remain utterly oblivious.
缠中说禅 2007/11/2 15:29:24
[Anonymous] Ah Ge — Delete all comments by this person
2007-11-02 15:22:58
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