First Foyan Foray

I'll get back to Huangbo eventually, but lets dive into a little Foyan.

One who is not a companion of myriad things has departed the toils of materialism. The mind does not recognize the mind, the eye does not see the eye; since there is no opposition, when you see forms there are no forms there to be seen, and when you hear sounds there are no sounds there to be heard. Is this not departing the toils of materialism

Being a companion would be having an attachment. Myriad things would be any sensation. If you see the things as things that are to be desired, you haven't yet abandoned the toils (the effort, or struggle) of materialism.

When this is the case, there is a nonduality. No difference between seer and seen.

There is no particular pathway into it, no gap through which to see it: Buddhism has no East or West, South or North; one does not say, “You are the disciple, I am the teacher” If your own self is clear and everything is It, when you visit a teacher you do not see that there is a teacher; when you inquire of yourself, you do not see that you have a self. When you read scripture, you do not see that there is scripture there. When you eat, you do not see that there is a meal there. When you sit and meditate, you do not see that there is any sitting. You do not slip up in your everyday tasks, yet you cannot lay hold of anything at all.

Just another emphasis. Things aren't things at all, in the absolute sense. This is why Huangbo goes on and on about dropping concepts. Things are only things to the extent that we form a concept around them and attach significance behind it. But this isn't a necessary or innate function of the mind. True awareness or the absolute lies behind this, and is functioning prior to it, all the time. Our Buddhanature. Just recognize the experience as experience, rather than a myriad of things.

When you see in this way, are you not independent and free

Buddhanature, thusness, is always operating forever.