To practice Zen, you need deep roots.
People with deep roots are rare.
In the past anyone could practice Zen.
But not now.
Zen depends completely on yourself.
It’s much harder, especially now.
If you don't see the path
That meets your eye
How will your feet know the way?
Moving forward isn't
A question of near or far
When you are lost,
Mountains and rivers block your way.
Please let me remind you
Who study the inconceivable:
Your time is running fast.
Don't ignore it.
Each drifting snowflake
falls nowhere
but here and now
Under the settling flowers of ice
the water is flowing
bright and clear
The cold stream
splashes out
the Buddha's words
startling the stone tortoise
from its sleep.
On a peak standing still
Only clouds coming and going.
A thousand misty mountains below me.
In the open sitting straight
Nothing false, nothing real
Shapes of light and dark before me.
Many things we do naturally become difficult only when we try to make them intellectual subjects.
It is possible to know so much about a subject that you become totally ignorant.
If people are quiet,
They can be quiet anywhere.
If people aren’t quiet
They won’t be quiet in the mountains.
Everything depends on you.
Life is transient,
Like a flash of lightning in a dream.
Before we receive this form,
We had another face,
Our original face.
We can’t see it with our eyes.
We can only know it with wisdom.
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
Everyone holds a luminous jewel,
All embrace a precious gem;
If you do not turn your attention
Around and look within,
You will wander from home
With a hidden treasure.
In the mountainside meditation hut,
Just a monk’s robes.
And outside windows, no one.
Birds at the stream take flight.
Yellow dusk stretching half-way
Down the mountain road,
I hear cascades in love with
Kingfisher-greens gone dark.
The Dharma of the Buddha does not require a person to go into homelessness or to resign from the world, unless he or she feels called upon to do so.
The Dharma asks every person to free themselves from the illusion of self, to cleanse one’s heart, to give up one’s thirst for pleasure, and lead a life of balance.
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14 Jul '20 12:57
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