Ghostly Activities and the Enlightenment of an Unobstructed Mind-Ground

The patriarchs of the Chan school once said: "What is obtained through thinking, what is obtained through deliberation — that is the ghost's livelihood." Ghosts are dark and not luminous, carrying the sense of secretly peeping; it is not an upright and honorable way of obtaining. 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 open realization of the mind-ground, not the opening-through from the inside out.

Therefore the Chan masters said that true enlightenment cannot be attained through the kind of thinking of the mind consciousness, nor can it be attained through the analytical deliberation of that consciousness. The deliberative activity of the mind consciousness cannot obtain true enlightenment; it is not an upright and honorable enlightenment. The Chan masters tell us that in investigating Chan we should not apply the mind at the level of the consciousness, but should instead go deeper, cutting off emotional thinking, cutting off speculation and interpretation, entering into meditative concentration (samādhi), investigating deeply, carrying a questioning doubt, practicing diligently and solidly in pursuit of the Path — only then 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.