True Mind Beyond Death

Question: We have heard that men who have seen the nature transcend birth and
death. However, all the patriarchs of the past had seen the nature; and yet they
all were born and they all died. Nowadays, we see that those who are cultivating
the path are born and will die too. How can we leave behind birth and death?

Chinul: Birth and death are originally nonexistent; they exist because of a false
notion. It is like a person with diseased eyes who sees flowers in the sky….. As
a sutra says: Men of good family! Since time immemorial all sentient beings
have been subject to all kinds of inverted views. They are like people who have
confused the four directions. They wrongly assume that the four elements are
their own bodies. They regard the shadows conditioned by the six sense-objects
as their own minds. 

This is like diseased eyes which see flowers in the sky. Yet even if all the
flowers in the sky were to vanish from space, it still could not be said that they
actually vanished. And why is this? Because they never came into existence in
the first place. All sentient beings mistakenly perceive an arising and a ceasing
within this non-arising state. For this reason, it is called the revolving wheel of
birth and death.

````````````````````

                                                   
Chinul – Tracing back the radiance. 1158-1210 AC