July 20, 2023, Scott Thornton: Mount Sumeru Vaporizes Mistakes

A monk asked, “Not a single thought arises. Is there any fault?” Unmon said: “Mount Sumeru.” Sumeru by tradition is higher than the stars, cosmically vast (much vaster than getting it right or wrong), and should be visible from everywhere. Maybe it’s a bit like Unmon’s responses – which, it’s said, always perform three functions: they cut through, they cover the matter entirely, and they fit the question perfectly, like a box its lid. “Mount Sumeru.”

So is there any fault when no thought arises? We’re not corpses, and the wind is a thought, the birdsong is a thought… or put another way, the true “no thought arises” is the freedom of our essential nature, where nothing like a thought has ever arisen. Thought is no-thought there.

The taste of quietness and no-thought can mean something if we follow it into a life of compassion and awareness. Otherwise it’s more or less a trinket.


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