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The wind blows wherever it pleases
You hear its sound but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going
So it is with everyone born of the Spirit

John 3:8 (NIV)
Attributed to Jesus of Nazareth.

Don’t tell me how difficult the Way.
The bird’s path, winding far,
Is right before you.
Water of the Dokei Gorge,
You return to the ocean,
I to the mountain.

- Hofuku Seikatsu

On the rocky slope, blossoming
Plums-from where?
Once he saw them, Reiun
Danced all the way to Sandai.

- Hoin

die before you die and you will never die

Good Dharmas arise and evil karmas too
Yet both are but illusions,
The body is like foam,
Like wind the mind;
Illusion has no base and no reality.

- Sikkin Buddha

It is better to keep your true, Original mind than to Contemplate the Buddhas of the ten directions.

- Fifth Patriarch

Be Lost in the Call


Lord, said David, since you do not need us,
why did you create these two worlds?

Reality replied: O prisoner of time,
I was a secret treasure of kindness and generosity,
and I wished this treasure to be known,
so I created a mirror: its shining face, the heart;
its darkened back, the world;
The back would please you if you've never seen the face.

Has anyone ever produced a mirror out of mud and straw?
Yet clean away the mud and straw,
and a mirror might be revealed.

Until the juice ferments a while in the cask,
it isn't wine. If you wish your heart to be bright,
you must do a little work.

My King addressed the soul of my flesh:
You return just as you left.
Where are the traces of my gifts?

We know that alchemy transforms copper into gold.
This Sun doesn't want a crown or robe from God's grace.
He is a hat to a hundred bald men,
a covering for ten who were naked.

Jesus sat humbly on the back of an ass, my child!
How could a zephyr ride an ass?
Spirit, find your way, in seeking lowness like a stream.
Reason, tread the path of selflessness into eternity.

Remember God so much that you are forgotten.
Let the caller and the called disappear;
be lost in the Call.

~ Rumi

Rough were the mountain stones,
And the path very narrow.
When I reached the temple,
Bats were in the dusk.
I climbed to the hall,
Sat on the steps,
And drank in the rain washed air

- Han Yu

On the old wall were Buddhas
Finely painted.
The old priest brought a light to
Illumine them.
He spread the bed,
Dusted the mats, and made
My supper ready.
At midnight, while lying there, The mountain moon entered the door.

- Han Yu

"Harmony neither acts nor reasons;
Love acts, but without reason;
Justice acts to serve reason;
But ritual acts to enforce reason.

When the Way is lost, there remains harmony;
When harmony is lost, there remains love;
When love is lost, there remains justice;
And when justice is lost, there remains ritual."
--Tao Te Ching

What after all is one night?
A short space,
especially when the darkness dims so soon,
and so soon a bird sings,
a cock crows,
or a faint green quickens, like a turning leaf,
in the hollows of the wave.

Night, however, succeeds to night.
The winter holds a pack of them
in store
and deals them equally,
evenly,
with indefatigable fingers.
They lengthen; they darken.
Some of them hold aloft clear planets,
plates of brightness.

The autumn trees,
ravaged as they are,
take on the flesh of tattered flags
kindling in the doom
of cool cathedral caves
where gold letters on marble pages
describe death in battle
and how bones bleach and burn
far away in Indian sands.

The autumn trees
gleam in the yellow moonlight,
in the light of harvest moons,
the light which mellows the energy of labour,
and smooths the stubble,
and brings the wave
lapping blue
to the shore.
~Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

At dawn I left the mountain,
And alone, lost my way;
In and out, up and down,
While a heavy mist made brook
And mountain green and purple
Brightening everything.
I passed pines and oaks which ten
People could not circle.
I tread pebbles barefoot in swift moving
Water, its ripples purify the ear,
While a soft breeze blew.
What if I spent my old age here,
And never went back home?

- Han Yu

When you correctly attain your original nature, both Buddha and Patriarchs are no longer of any use to you.

Light fades away in heaven and earth

When the sun and moon grow dark

Yet, dharma has many depths of meaning, and people have different capacities to receive it. Therefore it is necessary to adopt different kinds of skillful means.

- So Sahn (1520-1604)

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dammit, i just love an obscure lesson that might not be real clear until much later

Bewildered, bewildered, you have no complaint.
You are what you are, and you ain't what you ain't.

~ John Prine

Your mind is a tool. Like any tool, put it away when you're done using it.

-Mel Ash (paraphrased)