...

one day,
some day,
i will learn to read this in the language it was written...


Mind set free in the Dharma-realm,
I sit at the moon-filled window
Watching the mountains with my ears,
Hearing the stream with open eyes.
Each molecule preaches perfect law,
Each moment chants true sutra:
The most fleeting thought is timeless,
A single hair’s enough to stir the sea.

- Shutaku (14th c)

I found my way up
Yoshino’s precipice-hung
Path and into its
Past, seeing there the blossoms
I sought that spring ages ago.

- Saigyo (1118–1190)

@rookie54 said
Xiangyan Zhixian studied at the assembly of Guishan Lingyou; Zen Master Dayuan said, “you are bright and knowledgeable. Say something about yourself before your parents were born, but don’t use words you have learned from sutras and commentaries.

Xiangyan tried and tried but could not say anything. He poured through the many books he had collected over the years but could ...[text shortened]... e, an equivalent of our kitchen assistant. He followed this vow for years.

- Xiangyan and Guishan

“A painting of a rice cake doesn’t satisfy hunger...”

It is pure honor to be a gruel monk.

@rookie54 said
One day Xiangyan said to Guishan, “My mind is undifferentiated; I cannot speak. Can you explain this to me, Master?”

Guishan said, “I wouldn’t mind explaining it to you, but if I did, you would resent me.”

- Xiangyan and Guishan

Here is an expansion of this story and the previous one with commentary.

http://www.chogyezencenter.org/2014/05/what-to-do-with-despair/

@hakima
thank you for the illumination

Someone asked, “What do you mean by the true Buddha, the true Dharma and the true Way? Would you be good enough to explain to us?”

The Master said,”The Buddha- this is the cleanness and purity of the mind. The Dharma- this is the shining brightness of the mind. The Way- this is the pure light that is never obstructed anywhere. The three are in fact one. All are empty names and have no true reality.”

- Lin-chi (d.867)

@hakima said
Here is an expansion of this story and the previous one with commentary.

http://www.chogyezencenter.org/2014/05/what-to-do-with-despair/

i have felt this uselessness
it comes and goes like the wind, seemingly like i have no control
i think i do have control, such a silly notion

all that exists is born of chaos

The monkey is reaching
For the moon in the water.
Until death overtakes him
He’ll never give up.
If he’d let go the branch and
Disappear in the deep pool,
The whole world would shine
With dazzling pureness.

- Hakuin (1685-1768)

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Anon.

Even profound concepts are ultimately empty: the Ultimate Path is wordless, and if we speak, we go astray from it. Though we may characterize the fundamental basis as “empty by nature,” there is no “fundamental basis” that can be labeled. Emptiness itself is wordless: it is not a mental construct.

- Records of the Lanka

“God! God!” they cry,
till there’s a callus on their tongue.
If saying God gave liberation,
saying candy made your mouth sweet,
saying fire burned your feet,
saying water quenched your thirst,
saying food banished hunger,
the whole world would be free.

- Kabir

Wake up, time to die.

Leon.

Not much to offer you –
Just a lotus flower floating
In a small jar of water.

- Ryokan

"...there would be far less suffering amongst mankind, if men—and God knows why they are so fashioned—did not employ their imaginations so assiduously in recalling the memory of past sorrow, instead of bearing their present lot with equanimity."

Johann Wolfgang Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther

A mere handful of thatch
The roof of my hut is a vast expanse
The mountains form a rough fence around me
The sea becomes my garden
. Countless people seek me out
Only to leave again unsuccessful,
All of them complaining about finding my gate
Firmly closed in the broad daylight.

- Soseki