The Practice of Not Adding Discrimination to a Single Thought

Equal Enlightenment and Wonderful Enlightenment are names and stages set up to describe the depth of a bodhisattva's practice. But from the standpoint of Seon, in the original mind — buddha-nature itself — there is no high or low, no first or last. The words that divide the stages of practice are a skillful means for explaining awakening, not actual steps in your original place.

The teaching that matters most in today's passage is 'not falling into a second thought.' This does not mean a state of having no thought at all. It means that, right where you see, hear, feel, and know, you do not immediately add discrimination on top of it and hold on.

When you see a flower, you first simply see the flower. But when the mind immediately follows with 'I like it, I dislike it, it's mine, I want it,' a second thought is born. In the moment you hear someone's words, too, if you keep adding an interpretation — 'they ignored me, how dare they' — on top of the plain fact you heard, discrimination gives birth to more discrimination.

So not falling into a second thought does not mean eliminating thought. It means not stacking one more thought on top of a thought and clinging to it. The 'no-mind' spoken of in Seon is not a mind like wood or stone that knows nothing; it is a mind that knows everything clearly, yet does not dwell in that thought. This connects with the teaching of giving rise to mind while dwelling nowhere — to raise the mind without settling anywhere.

Even the thought that measures, 'Am I at Equal Enlightenment now, or Wonderful Enlightenment?' or 'How much have I awakened?' can itself become a second thought that splits yourself and awakening into two. When you do not dwell in names and stages, do not add discrimination to a single thought, and remain simply clear in seeing and hearing, there is no longer a division into two right where you are.