This emptiness
Is not empty emptiness
This Path is not a path
That can be considered a path
Where peaceful extinction is totally extinct
Perfect illumination is complete and final.
When concentration and wisdom are joined,
Then there is understanding.
When understanding illumines the
Outside world,
The world has nothing to conceal any more.
Just as a large round mirror
Reflects an image without being affected by it.
Doing good seeking rewards
Is contaminated virtue.
Doing good without thought of reward,
Dedicating it to enlightenment,
Is uncontaminated virtue.
Contamination and non-contamination
Refer to the state of mind of the doer,
Not to the good deed itself.
- Muso Kokushi (1275-1351)
Matthew 6:2 - 4
2“So when you give to the poor, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be honored by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. 3“But when you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving will be in secret; and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.
Buddha ancestors have said since ancient times,
“Living for one hundred years without encountering a buddha does not compare with living for one day and arousing determination for the way.”
Rinsed by the rain,
The front garden is clean,
And the corridor in which the wind
Passes is a cool as autumn.
The mountain green, sound of water
Pines dancing in the wind
What could disturb my mind?
The Diamond Sutra says: “As for an infinite number of beings who have been saved, in fact there are no beings who have been saved.”
As a whole, Bodhisattvas of the First Stage at the beginning
have the realization that all things are empty. Later on they obtain the realization that all things are not empty, which is identical to the “wisdom of non-discrimination”.
The Heart Sutra says: “Form is emptiness.” It is not because form is eliminated and then there is emptiness. “The nature of form is emptiness.”
You can only hear a bell out beyond mist:
the monastery deep in mist is lost to sight.
Straw sandals wet with the dew of grasses,
a recluse wanders.
Never coming to rest,
he's simply an echo of the mountaintop moon,
light coming and going night after night.
The gates to the Way are manifold:
Each is profound and effective.
But deeper and finer is the
Sky beyond the sky, that,
Understood corresponds to the
Tao of heaven.
For the Way is vast and without favor
And the all-empty Tao is profound.
With an empty heart, its nature is easily
Learned, though its power encompasses
The cosmos.
With its wisdom one may discern life’s
Great mysteries, so that the heart may
Become pure as the throne of the immortals.
Sages lean on a pillar
That is never shaken,
Travel a road that is
Never blocked, are
Endowed from a
Resource that is never
Exhausted, and learn
From a teacher that
Never dies.
They are successful
In whatever they undertake,
And arrive wherever they go.
Whatever they do, they
Embrace destiny and go along
Without confusion.
We think we have to be a certain way because we have been taught to be a certain way. Actually, the only truth is to keep quiet and see what happens from there.
When I feel ill-tempered, when I feel sad, when I feel distant, it's just something that is happening. When I don't compare it to the past and project it into the future, then it's just something that is happening now. It's a way of dying now.
~Papaji
The Way of heaven is silent,
It has no appearance, no pattern.
It is so vast that its
Limit cannot be reached;
It is so deep that it
Cannot be fathomed.
It is always evolving
Along with people,
But knowledge cannot grasp it.
It turns like a wheel,
Beginninglessly and endlessly,
Effective as a spirit.
Open and empty,
It goes along with the flow,
Always coming afterward
And never in the forefront.
...
23 Jul '19 11:38
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