A "No Concern" Mind

 At this point, throw away your concerns about the raging fire, your very life, your anticipation of others' help; with no other thoughts and refusing to halt, just directly dash forward. If you can break out [of the raging fire], then you're a person of [great] abilities! Master Boshan, "What Beginning Practitioners Should Know", from Sheng Yen, Attaining the Way, p.7

As I am reading this statement, I feel that it contradicts everything I "think" about the goals of practice. Isn't practice about being prudent, observing precepts, and remaining humble in the face of death? Where does the "directly dashing forward" come into it? And, does this act of dashing forward mean abandoning thought altogether? 

My sense is that that the passage doesn't suggest that one be rash, only that one not be clouded and deluded about the nature of thoughts themselves. Thoughts don't really connect with each other; they are transient, and it is only past habits that joins thoughts into concrete wholes. When I see the desk and associate it with a memory of "past desk", I immediately assume that the desk is permanent in nature, not realizing that this desk I am seeing is not the same desk as the past. Different thought, completely different conditions arising from each of these thoughts, yet the mind falsely concludes that it's the same desk because the appearance is the same. Little are we aware that even seemingly solid objects are the result of temporary conditions in the present--the quantum collapse of energy fields based on both form and perceptions.

If my actions are reactions to thought formations, then I fail to see the nature of thought, and it's easy for me to get ensnarled in likes and dislikes, as well as the identity formation of self. By questioning what is the original mind before the birth and death of identity (ego, others, things, "me" and so on), we get to the point where thoughts no longer give rise to the delusion of permanence. Suddenly the mind becomes calm and more clear, more able to work with the illusory thoughts with flow and finesse. Perhaps this is part of what Master Boshan means when comparing the practitioner to a someone running from a burning house.

But I think the most crucial aspect of the burning house metaphor is the sense of urgency it evokes. If we don't act NOW, we forever hold the possibility of liberation indefinitely into the future. This is not because we feel we have lots of time to spend, but because we have no faith in our buddha nature. We think we have to participate in some great meditative experience to arrive at the mind that is already beyond likes and dislikes, change and stasis, arising and falling, birth and death. All we need really do is examine all these polarities and, one by one, question whether the any one of these polarities represents the true you, the true mind you are using to take in these words.

The immediacy of the fire is representative of the sense of urgency needed to stop creating a sense of time and stop thinking buddhahood is some distant future goal. It can only happen when we investigate deeply what is happening now, deep within, in this present moment, without second thought or discursive thinking.