A place to practice.

In the book on “Appearance of the Realized” in the Flower Ornament Scripture it says:

The knowledge of those who arrive at reality reaches everywhere. Why? Because there is not a single being but has knowledge of those who arrive at reality; it’s just that they cannot actually realize it because of the delusions and fixations of false ideas. If they would detach from false ideas, all knowledge, spontaneous knowledge, and unhindered knowledge could come to the fore. It is as if there were a scripture the size of the universe, recording everything in the universe, completely contained in an atom, and as in one atom so in all atoms. Now there is someone with clear and accurate insight who has fully developed pure clairvoyance and sees this scripture inside atoms, where it is of no benefit to people, and reflects, “I should make the effort to break open the atoms, one and all, to release this scripture and enable all people everywhere to gain benefit from it.” The knowledge of those who arrive at reality is also like this, infinite, pervasive, with the potential to benefit people everywhere.

Then the Realized One observed all living beings in the cosmos with the eye of unobstructed pure knowledge and uttered these words:

How wonderful! How strange! How is it that these beings have the knowledge of those who arrive at reality, yet in ignorance and folly they do not know or see? I should teach them the Way of the wise, to enable them to be free of the fixations of false ideas forever and actually perceive in themselves the vast knowledge of those who arrive at reality, no different from Buddhas.

Then he taught people to practice the noble path to get them to detach from false ideas, and they realized the infinite knowledge of those who arrive at reality, which benefits and comforts all living beings.

The Comprehensive Scripture of Complete Awareness says:

All living beings experience complete awareness. When they meet teachers, depending on the principles and practices they make basic, then their practice may be immediate or gradual, but if they find the right route of practicing the unsurpassed enlightenment of those who arrive at reality, then they all attain buddhahood regardless of whether their faculties are great or small.

If you want to master this path, first you need the faculty of great faith. What is the faculty of faith? It means faith in the inherence of the nature of mind and the immeasurable knowledge of all Buddhas; faith that those who cultivate it will realize it, regardless of the magnitude of their potential or the degree of their intelligence; faith that as the power of concentration develops various states will occur and if you mistake them for enlightenment you’ll fall into the categories of the two vehicles or outsiders; faith that when the time comes and effort has been sufficient, the enlightened nature will suddenly appear, without making use of intellectual discrimination; faith that even if the enlightened nature suddenly appears, if you don’t see a teacher and don’t pass through multiple barriers, you will have wasted your life; faith that even if you pass through multiple barriers and attain the essence of Zen, our school’s last bit of progressive transcendence has a distinct life; faith that even if you attain that bit of experience beyond, power and function are not equal, depending on individual application, involving a lot of detail; faith that the succession of teachers has a reason, and efforts to continue true Zen should not be neglected; faith that every lifetime from here on is one thing, cultivation of the Way; faith in upholding the experience of progressive transcendence and communicating it to the future, not letting it die out.

- Torei Enji (1667-1751), The Undying Lamp of Zen