Hui-neng said, "Don't think good; don't think evil." This is an essential preamble to true realization. In the Hsin-hsin ming we read, "To set up what you are against what you dislike — this is the disease of the mind." "Comparisons are odious." I hear grown-up people say, "I don't like so-and-so." Such prejudice limits one's understanding of the Buddha-nature of the world and its beings.

Rather than setting up "good and evil" in the mind, set up right views, the first step of the Eightfold Path. These are the views that are keeping with the interdependence of things and their essential emptiness. "Don't think good; don't think evil" means really, "Find the silent place of essential harmony in your mind, and be ready for what might come."

Robert Aitken, The Morning Star