I
There is the leisurely one,
Walking the Tao, beyond philosophy,
Not
avoiding fantasy, not seeking truth.
The real nature of ignorance is Buddha-nature itself;
The empty
delusory body is the very body of the Dharma.
When the Dharma body
awakens completely,
There is nothing at all.
The source of our self-nature
Is the Buddha of innocent
truth.
Mental and physical reactions come and go
Like clouds in the
empty sky;
Greed, hatred, and ignorance appear and disappear
Like
bubbles on the surface of the sea.
When we realize actuality,
There is no distinction between mind and
thing
And the path to hell instantly vanishes.
If this is a lie to
fool the world,
My tongue may be cut out forever.
Once we awaken to the Tathagata-Zen,
The six noble deeds and the ten
thousand good actions
Are already complete within us.
In our dream
we see the six levels of illusion clearly;
After we awaken the whole
universe is empty.
No bad fortune, no good fortune, no loss, no
gain;
Never seek such things in eternal serenity.
For years the dusty mirror has gone uncleaned,
Now let us polish it
completely, once and for all.
Who has no-thought? Who is
not-born?
If we are truly not-born,
We are not un-born
either.
Ask a robot if this is not so.
How can we realize ourselves
By virtuous deeds or by seeking the
Buddha?
Release your hold on earth, water, fire, wind;
Drink and eat
as you wish in eternal serenity.
All things are transient and
completely empty;
This is the great enlightenment of the Tathagata.
Transience, emptiness and enlightenment --
These are the ultimate
truths of Buddhism;
Keeping and teaching them is true Sangha
devotion.
If you don`t agree, please ask me about it.
Cut out
directly the root of it all, --
This is the very point of the
Buddha-seal.
I can't respond to any concern about leaves and branches.
People do
not recognize the Mani-jewel.
Living intimately within the
Tathagata-garbha,
It operates our sight, hearing, smell, taste,
sensation, awareness;
And all of these are empty, yet not empty.
The rays shining from this perfect Mani-jewel
Have the form of no
form at all.
Clarify the five eyes and develop the five powers;
This
is not intellectual work, -- just realize, just know.
It is not
difficult to see images in a mirror,
But who can take hold of the moon
in the water?
Always working alone, always walking alone,
The enlightened one
walks the free way of Nirvana
With melody that is old and clear in
spirit
And naturally elegant in style,
But with a body that is tough
and bony,
Passing unnoticed in the world.
We know that Shakya's sons and daughters
Are poor in body, but not
in the Tao.
In their poverty, they always wear ragged clothing,
But
they have the jewel of no price treasured within.
This jewel of no
price can never be used up
Though they spend it freely to help people
they meet.
Dharmakaya, Sambogakaya, Nirmanakaya,
And the four kinds of
wisdom
Are all contained within.
The eight kinds of emancipation and
the six universal powers
Are all impressed on the ground of their
mind.
The best student goes directly to the ultimate,
The others are very
learned but their faith is uncertain.
Remove the dirty garments from
your own mind;
Why should you show off your outward striving?
Some may slander, some may abuse;
They try to set fire to the
heavens with a torch
And end by merely tiring themselves out.
I hear
their scandal as though it were ambrosial truth;
Immediately everything
melts
And I enter the place beyond thought and words.
When I consider the virtue of abusive words,
I find the
scandal-monger is my good teacher.
If we do not become angry at
gossip,
We have no need for powerful endurance and compassion.
To be
mature in Zen is to be mature in expression,
And full-moon brilliance
of dhyana and prajna
Does not stagnate in emptiness.
Not only can I take hold of complete enlightenment by myself,
But
all Buddha-bodies, like sands of the Ganges,
Can become awakened in
exactly the some way.
The incomparable lion-roar of
doctrine
Shatters the brains of the one hundred kinds of
animals.
Even the king of elephants will run away, forgetting his
pride;
Only the heavenly dragon listens calmly, with pure delight.
I wandered over rivers and seas, crossing mountains and
streams,
Visiting teachers, asking about the Way in personal
interviews;
Since I recognized the Sixth Founding Teacher at Ts'ao
Ch'i,
I know what is beyond the relativity of birth and death.
Walking is Zen, sitting is Zen;
Speaking or silent, active or quiet,
the essence is at peace.
Even facing the sword of death, our mind is
unmoved;
Even drinking poison, our mind is quiet.
Our teacher, Shakyamuni, met Dipankara Buddha
And for many eons he
trained as Kshanti, the ascetic.
Many births, many deaths;
I am
serene in this cycle, -- there is no end to it.
Since I abruptly
realized the unborn,
I have had no reason for joy or sorrow
At any
honor or disgrace.
I have entered the deep mountains to silence and beauty;
In a
profound valley beneath high cliffs,
I sit under the old pine
trees.
Zazen in my rustic cottage
Is peaceful, lonely, and truly
comfortable.
When you truly awaken,
You have no formal merit.
In the
multiplicity of the relative world,
You cannot find such freedom.
Self-centered merit brings the joy of heaven itself,
But it is like
shooting an arrow at the sky;
When the force is exhausted, it falls to
the earth,
And then everything goes wrong.
Why should this be better
Than the true way of the
absolute,
Directly penetrating the ground of Tathagata?
Just take
hold of the source
And never mind the branches.
It is like a treasure-moon
Enclosed in a beautiful emerald.
Now I
understand this Mani-jewel
And my gain is the gain of everyone
endlessly.
The moon shines on the river,
The wind blows through the
pines,--
Whose providence is this long beautiful evening?
The Buddha-nature jewel of morality
Is impressed on the ground of my
mind,
And my robe is the dew, the fog, the cloud, and the mist.
A
bowl once calmed dragons
And a staff separated fighting tigers;
The
rings on this staff jingle musically.
The form of these expressions is not to be taken lightly;
The
treasure-staff of the Tathagata
Has left traces for us to
follow.
The awakened one does not seek truth--
Does not cut off
delusion.
Truth and delusion are both vacant and without form,
But this
no-form is neither empty nor not empty;
It is the truly real form of
the Tathagata.
The mind-mirror is clear, so there are no
obstacles.
Its brilliance illuminates the universe
To the depths and
in every grain of sand.
Multitudinous things of the cosmos
Are all reflected in the
mind,
And this full clarity is beyond inner and outer.
To live in
nothingness is to ignore cause and effect;
This chaos leads only to
disaster.
The one who clings to vacancy, rejecting the world of
things,
Escapes from drowning but leaps into fire.
Holding truth and
rejecting delusion--
These are but skillful lies.
Students who do zazen by such lies
Love thievery in their own
children.
They miss the Dharma-treasure;
They lose accumulated
power;
And this disaster follows directly upon dualistic thinking.
So Zen is the complete realization of mind,
The complete cutting off
of delusion,
The power of wise vision penetrating directly to the
unborn.
Students of virtue will hold the sword of wisdom;
The prajna edge is
a diamond flame.
It not only cuts off useless knowledge,
But also
exterminates delusions.
They roar with Dharma-thunder;
They strike the Dharma-drum;
They
spread clouds of love, and pour ambrosial rain.
Their giant footsteps
nourish limitless beings;
Sravaka, Pratyeka, Bodhisattva--all are
enlightened;
Five kinds of human nature all are emancipated.
High in the Himalayas, only fei-ni grass grows.
Here cows produce
pure and delicious milk,
And this food I continually enjoy.
One
complete nature passes to all natures;
One universal Dharma encloses
all Dharmas.
One moon is reflected in many waters;
All the water-moons are from
the one moon.
The Dharma-body of all Buddhas has entered my own nature,
And my nature becomes one with the Tathagata.
One level completely
contains all levels;
It is not matter, mind nor activity.
In an instant eighty-thousand teachings are fulfilled;
In a
twinkling the evil of eons is destroyed.
All categories are no
category;
What relation have have these to my insight?
Beyond
praise, beyond blame, --
Like space itself it has no bounds.
Right here it is eternally full and serene,
If you search elsewhere,
you cannot see it.
You cannot grasp it, you cannot reject it;
In the
midst of not gaining,
In that condition you gain it.
It speaks in
silence,
In speech you hear its silence.
The great way has opened
and there are no obstacles.
If someone asks, what is your sect
And how do you understand
it?
I reply, the power of tremendous prajna.
People say it is
positive;
People say it is negative;
But they do not know.
A smooth road, a rough road --
Even heaven cannot imagine.
I have
continued my zazen for many eons;
I do not say this to confuse
you.
I raise the Dharma-banner and set forth our teaching;
It is the
clear doctrine of the Buddha
Which I found with my teacher, Hui
Neng.
Mahakashyapa became the Buddha-successor,
Received the lamp
and passed it on.
Twenty-eight generations of teachers in India,
Then over seas and
rivers to our land
Bodhi Dharma came as our own first founder,
And
his robe, as we all know, passed through six teachers here,
And how
many generations to come may gain the path?
No one knows.
The truth is not set forth;
The false is basically vacant.
Put
both existence and non-existence aside,
Then even non-vacancy is
vacant.
The twenty kinds of vacancy have no basis,
And the oneness
of the Tathagata-being
Is naturally sameness.
Mind is the base, phenomena are dust;
Yet both are like a flaw in
the mirror.
When the flaw is brushed aside,
The light begins to
shine.
When both mind and phenomena are forgotten,
Then we become
naturally genuine.
Ah, the degenerate materialistic world!
People are unhappy; they
find self-control difficult.
In the centuries since Shakyamuni, false
views are deep,
Demons are strong, the Dharma is weak, disturbances are
many.
People hear the Buddha's doctrine of immediacy,
And if they
accept it, the demons will be crushed
As easily as a roofing tile.
But they cannot accept, what a pity!
Your mind is the source of
action;
Your body is the agent of calamity;
No pity nor blame to
anyone else.
If you don't seek an invitation to hell,
Never slander the
Tathagata's true teaching.
In the sandalwood forest, there is no other
tree.
Only the lion lives in such deep luxuriant woods,
Wandering
freely in a state of peace.
Other animals and birds stay far away.
Just baby lions follow the parent,
And three-year-olds already roar
loudly.
How can the jackal pursue the king of the Dharma
Even with a
hundred-thousand demonic arts?
The Buddha's doctrine of
directness
Is not a matter for human emotion.
If you doubt this or
feel uncertain,
Then you must discuss it with me.
This is not the free rein of a mountain monk's ego.
I fear your
training may lead to wrong views
Of permanent soul or complete
extinction.
Being is not being; non-being is not non-being;
Miss
this rule by a hair,
And you are off by a thousand
miles.
Understanding it, the dragon-child abruptly attains
Buddhahood;
Misunderstanding it, the greatest scholar falls into
hell.
From my youth I piled studies upon studies,
In sutras and sastras I
searched and researched,
Classifying terms and forms, oblivious to
fatigue.
I entered the sea to count the sands in vain
And then the
Tathagata scolded me kindly
As I read "What profit is there in counting
your neighbor's treasure?"
My work had been scattered and entirely useless,
For years I was
dust blown by the wind.
If the seed-nature is wrong, misunderstandings
arise,
And the Buddha's doctrine of immediacy cannot be
attained.
Shravaka and Pratyeka students may study earnestly
But
they lack aspiration.
Others may be very clever,
But they lack prajna.
Stupid ones,
childish ones,
They suppose there is something in an empty
fist.
They mistake the pointing finger for the moon.
They are idle
dreamers lost in form and sensation.
Not supposing something, we see cearly the Tathagata. This is truly
called Kwan-Yin, the Bodhisattva who sees freely.
When awakened we find
karmic hindrances fundamentally empty.
But when not awakened, we must
repay all our debts.
The hungry are served a king's repast,
And they cannot eat.
The
sick meet the king of doctors;
Why don't they recover?
The practice of Zen in this greedy world --
This is the power of
wise vision.
The lotus lives in the midst of the fire;
It is never
destroyed.
Pradhanashura broke the gravest precepts;
But he went on to realize
the unborn.
The Buddhahood he attained in that moment
Lives with us
now in our time.
The incomparable lion roar of the doctrine!
How sad that people are
stubbornly ignorant;
Just knowing that crime blocks
enlightenment,
Not seeing the secret of the Tathagata teaching.
Two monks were guilty of murder and carnality.
Their leader, Upali,
had the light of a glow-worm;
He just added to their
guilt.
Vimalakirti cleared their doubts at once
As sunshine melts
the frost and snow.
The remarkable power of emancipation
Works
wonders innumerable as the sands of the Ganges.
To this we offer
clothing, food, bedding, medicine.
Ten thousand pieces of gold are not sufficient;
Though you break
your body
And your bones become powder, --
This is not enough for
repayment.
One vivid word surpasses millions of years of practice.
The King of
the Dharma deserves our highest respect.
Tathagatas, innumerable as
sands of the Ganges,
All prove this fact by their attainment.
Now I know what the Mani-jewel is:
Those who believe this will gain
it accordingly.
When we see truly, there is nothing at all.
There is no person;
there is no Buddha.
Innumerable things of the universe
Are just
bubbles on the sea.
Wise sages are all like flashes of lightning
However the burning
iron ring revolves around my head,
With bright completeness of dhyana
and prajna
I never lose my equanimity.
If the sun becomes cold, and the moon hot,
Evil cannot shatter the
truth.
The carriage of the elephant moves like a mountain,
How can
the mantis block the road?
The great elephant does not loiter on the rabbit's path.
Great
enlightenment is not concerned with details.
Don't belittle the sky by
looking through a pipe.
If you still don't understand,
I will settle
it for you.
back