Observations placeholder
The Ceasing of Notions – 22 The Great Work and Free Will
Identifier
029066
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The reply in this translation is longer, but in others it has been kept at this with a comment. Ultimately the comments simply say if you can escape you will, if you can’t, you will have to accept it is happening.
Whatever the Great Work has destined for you will happen – and you will do whatever was planned out for you.
If you accept your destiny and the Great Work, you ultimately have no free will. On the other hand if you deny your destiny and the Great Work, you will be exercising free will. The former person has no fear of death , the latter has or will have.
A description of the experience
The Ceasing of Notions [or the Treatise on the Transcendence of Cognition]
47. Emmon asks ‘If an inexperienced beginner on the Way should suddenly encounter someone intent on killing him, what must he do to conform with the Way?’
Master Nyuri : ‘Nothing special needs to be done’
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Emmon asks ‘a man who cries out in pain or grief is surely swayed by his feelings?’
Master Nyuri : ‘............if the heart is empty and makes no distinctions, the Way functions according to its own nature'.
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Emmon ‘I have heard it said that the Buddha cannot be wounded by weapons, is not oppressed by suffering, cannot be compelled by forms, and that his heart does not get agitated.
What does this mean ?’
Master Nyuri : 'If one fully realises that all things are devoid of a self; then whether emitting a sound or not emitting a sound, whether agitated or not agitated, all accords with the principle of the Way, without let or hindrance.'