The Ghost Family's Livelihood and the Awakening of Penetrating the Mind-Ground

Chan patriarchs once said: 思而得，虑而得，乃鬼家活计。The ghost is yin, dark and not bright, carrying the sense of secretly peeping; it is not a gain that is upright and honorable. Here the ghost is a metaphor for the mind consciousness. What the mind consciousness delights in is reasoning, guessing, speculating, peeping, and emotional thinking with intellectual interpretation—not the bright and honorable realization, not the opening-up from the inside out.

Therefore, Chan masters say that true enlightenment cannot be attained through the kind of thinking of the mind consciousness, nor can it be attained through the mind consciousness's analytical deliberation. The deliberative activity of the mind consciousness cannot obtain true enlightenment, and it is not an upright and honorable enlightenment. Chan masters tell us that in investigating Chan we should not apply effort on the level of the mind consciousness; rather, we should go deeper, cut off emotional thinking, cut off guessing and interpretation, enter meditative concentration (samādhi), investigate deeply, carry the questioning doubt, and diligently and solidly apply effort to cultivate the Path. Only in the end can one realize it in a bright and honorable way, and only then can one enter the Path. This is the heavenly ladder leading to the great Way, the cloud ladder for plucking the treasure.