Vladimir Oane's Key Ideas from Dropping Ashes on the Buddha
by Stephen Mitchell

What are you? You don't know. There is only "I don't know". Always keep this don't know mind with you, and your mind will become clear. And only then you will understand.

Throw away all your opinions and only keep the mind that does not know. That is the mind before thinking. That is your substance.

Zen can be explained through a ⭕. There are 5 points on the circle. Let's see how each point answers if a 📚 is different from a 🖊️:

• O°: you start from full attachment and suffering. The book and pencil are different.
• 90°: no more thinking. The book is the pencil and the pencil is the book.
• 180°: True emptiness. There are no words to describe the objects.
• 270°: freedom. The book is angry and the pencil sings.
• 360°: all things are just how they are. The truth is like this. The book is red, the pencil is yellow.

The zen circle starts from full suffering and ends in the same place with full embrace of the truth. You start with forms based on attachments and you end up with forms but not based on attachment but love.

• First Enlightenment: understand that form is emptiness and emptiness is form. "Is this a stick or not? If you say it is you are attached to form, if you say it isn't you are attached to emptiness."
• Original Enlightenment: no form, no emptiness. Words are useless.
• Final Enlightenment: understand that form is form & emptiness is emptiness. "the stick is brown and the sky is blue"

If you say "the same" I will hit you 30 times. If you say "different" I will hit you 30 times. Why?

Before thinking there are no words. "same" & "different" are opposite words, they are thinking mind. The right answer can only be obtained by keeping the don't know mind.

When the wind 🌬️ comes, there are big waves 🌊. When the wind dies down, the waves become smaller and smaller. Until finally the wind disappeares and the sea is clear like a mirror.

Then all mountains & trees & all things are reflected on the surface of the sea.

There are many thought waves in out minds. We have to practice don't know mind our mind will become clear like the clam sea.

Freedom thinking is freedom. Attachment thinking is hindrance.

Suppose your parents say, ‘Your shirt is dirty; you must change it!’ If you say, ‘No, I won't change; I am free!’, then you are attached to your dirty shirt or to your freedom itself.

So you are not free. If you are really free, then dirty is good and clean is good. It doesn't matter. Not changing my shirt is good; changing my shirt is good. If my parents want me to change, then I change. I don't do it for my own sake, only for theirs. This is freedom. No desire for myself, only for all people.

A student asked master Huang Bong to teach him Dharma but the master said it is too expensive.

The student offered him all the money he had only to get the same answer. After intense study he offered his life, then his mind but got the same answer.

Finally he said that the sky is blue and grass is green. Getting the same answer from the master he replied back telling him to shove his Dharma in his ass.

The master laughed and told him: "Don't loose my Dharma." The student was enlightened.

Are two different things. There is an "I" when you say "I want to get enlightened." This is desire. Ego. Small I.

But aspiration transcendens the idea of self. It is desire without attachment.

The Buddhist sage Lin Chi told a monk, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." He meant that those who think they've found all the answers in any religion need to start questioning.

Religion keeps the students dependent on the leader. That is an extreme form of attachment. Not Zen.

How can you help people who don't understand? People who are not listening?

These types of questions releveal a strong ego. Why should you change people? Why should they listen to you? One has to keep a beginner mind and have a mind like a mirror. When red looks into a mirror it becomes red.

Kill your strong self and find clear mind all the time, then save all people from suffering.

Words are not a good way to help others. It shows attachment to words, forms and concepts.

A truly great man has no words or speech—only action.

Mind is the tendency of the self which goes out to do actions. When it goes inside, it becomes the self, and when it is outside, it does things in the world.

The mind is no separate entity, it is not a modification of anything, it is nothing but consciousness. When the universal consciousness becomes contracted and takes the form of outside objects, then we call it mind. And when the same mind goes inside and becomes the self, again it becomes the consciousness itself. It contracts and it expands.