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Tread solid ground.
Step firmly, definitely, on the great earth. Actually experience rather than discuss and contend. Real, solid inquiry-and-investigation are what are really valuable.
ZGH 4450
A fragrant breeze
comes out of the South
The Dharma Hall
Produces a subtle coolness.
The fine condition—state of mind—beyond thought. The sentence is to be taken as it is, as if the scene were right in front of you. [“Fragrant breeze”: summer breeze.]
ZGH 10308
FOUR POEMS OF HAN-SHAN
The layered cliff I found to live by,
That birds head for,
Cuts off human intercourse
The clearing’s border is—what?
All there is
Is white cloud enfolding dark rocks
Dwelling here—how many years?
Over and over, seeing spring change
Right into winter.
Pass it on to families
Of loving cups and imperial caldron:
“Empty reputation is useless for sure.”
ZGH 5202
Wanting to take to and stay in it,
Cold Mountain is a chance to grow old safely
Light breeze in the lone pine—
Come close to hear the sound better
Beneath, a grizzle-haired man is here
Mumbling, getting Huang and Lao by heart
Ten years not having to go back,
Forgetting the when-coming way here.
ZGH 10135
My mind
Like
The autumn moon
A jade-green deep pool,
Clear,
Bright, pure white
Nothing
Is worthy to compare
With such intimate constancy.
Teach me
How
To be convincing.
ZGH 10233
Blow on the fire with the wind.
Great effect with little effort. The thing is done very easily.
ZGH 4132
An in-house thief is hard to guard against.
Raging blindness lodged in heart and mind is hard to part with.
ZGH 4162
The gentleman sees all sides, and so he does not take sides.
ZGH 642 [from the Confucian Analects]
At one
Without two faces. Not separate. And the related meanings: to equal, covenant with, help each other…
ZGH 16
The mountains, rivers
and great world,
all the majestic
natural phenomena
down to tiny animals in vinegar,
scorpions and gadflies,
the trifling grasses
and mustard stalks,
people and their cattle
—all give forth a great light
and each is a wall
many thousand yards high.
—meaning that each and every thing in this world radiates glorious, auspicious light and each has the subtle taste of the absolute. …
ZGH 281
Light breeze in the lone pine--
Come close
To hear the sound better.
ZGH 10135
Those who come
to say right and wrong
Are the very ones who
are right and wrong.
ZGH 1033
Students can be trained but should not be bound...growing freely, changing freely...without restriction by or dependence on the teacher. This takes patience...
PD p. 39
We walk on frosted ground praising chrysanthemums bordering fields; sit on the edge of the woods waiting for the moon to rise. Not having to be alone is happiness; we do not talk of failure or success.
Chia Tao, "When I Find You Again, It Will Be In Mountains"
Wild fox-bogey!
A reprimand [for the foxy (deceitful)]: “You wretched fox disguised [as human]!” There are times when this is used in praise while hiding that praise by seeming to censure.
ZGH 378
If you want to know about your previous life, know that the life you are now living is the result of it. If you want to know about your future life, know that the cause of it lies in what you have done in this life.
A sutra
Everything that comes (“into being”) will go again; (so) work out ([y]our) emancipation diligently (without a break).
Famous Last Words (according to some texts) of
the Buddha
Faith is a state of openness or trust. To have faith is like when you trust yourself to the water. You don't grab hold of the water when you swim, because if you do you will become stiff and tight in the water, and sink. You have to relax, and the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging, and holding on. In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight. But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.
Alan Watts
TWO EXAMPLES OF ZEN HUMOR:
Snoring so thunderous that dust flies from the beams.
Farmers sing in the fields; merchants dance in the markets.
A good traveler has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition
lead him wherever it wants.
A good scientist has freed himself of concepts
and keeps his mind open to what is.Tao
Grasp at it, and you miss it;
let go, and it follows you.
ZGH 671
It is an established way in Buddha-Dharma to deny that birth turns into death. Accordingly, birth is understood as no-birth [fu sho, “unborn” in the Heart Sutra]. It as an unshakeable teaching in Buddha’s discourse that death does not turn into birth. Accordingly, death is understood as no-death [fu metsu, “ungone” in the Hearth Sutra]. Birth is complete in its distinctness this moment. Death is complete in its distinctness this moment. They are like winter and spring. You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring.
MD, p. 70-71 [Dogen]
An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole that she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water.
Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do. After 2 years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house."
The old woman smiled, "Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table."
DEFINITION:
The Mother of all the Buddhas:
Prajnaparamita, the perfection (paramita) of the wisdom (prajna) that lives shunyata. Shunyata is emptiness: the ungraspable, indefinable, inconceivable nature of all things, events and relations in this brimming world. She is a goddess in “popular” Buddhism. Her nearest western analog is Pallas Athena. Some ancient statues of her are very beautiful, something like a mature Athena.
There is something that in stillness is called samadhi and in action is called mindfulness. It follows that deep samadhi while sitting helps a lot with the mindfulness needed, for example, to be an effective Sesshin officer. And vice-versa. I say this out of gratitude to our Sesshin officers in our recent sesshin. They “got it together”! –Zenrin
Thieves know thieves.
The path a snake takes is that snake. This is about friends, kindred spirits, their minds in intimate communion.
ZGH 371
Those who come
to say right and wrong
are the very ones
who are right and wrong.
Those who are always sticklers about right and wrong in others never, when all is said and done, get past being right-and-wrong people.
Don’t indulge in vain hopes.
Don’t cook up wild fancies. Never think on about useless trivia.
DEATH
One whose insight penetrates here
is truly great.
—a calligraphy by Hakuin
Sound of mountain
sound of ocean everywhere
spring rain.
—a Haiku by Soen Roshi
Don’t think “good,” don’t think “evil”;
Just at this moment, what is your original face [literally, face-and-eye: self] before your parents were born?
—words of [attributed to] the 6th Patriarch, Eno Daikan Zenji [The tense “confusion” is there in the original]
The Mississippi Delta, shining like our national guitar.
—Paul Simon, “Graceland”
There is a world which is not of this world, though inseparable from it. … [It] is a world of lights not accompanied by any form of shade. The essential nature of light is to intermingle without interfering or obstructing or destroying one another. One single light reflects in itself all other lights generally and individually. This is not a philosophical interpretation of existence reached by cold logical reasoning, nor is it a symbolical representation of the imagination. It is a world of real spiritual experience. Spiritual experience is like sense-experience. It is direct, and tells us directly all that it has experienced without resorting to symbolism or ratiocination.
—D.T. Suzuki, Essays in Zen Buddhism, 3rd Series, p. 99-100.
I taste a liquor never brewed —From Tankards scooped in Pearl —Not all the Vats upon the RhineYield such an Alcohol!Inebriate of Air — am I —And Debauchee of Dew —Reeling — thro endless summer days —From inns of Molten Blue —When "Landlords" turn the drunken BeeOut of the Foxglove's door —When Butterflies — renounce their "drams" —I shall but drink the more!Till Seraphs swing their snowy Hats —And Saints — to windows run —To see the little TipplerLeaning against the — Sun —
—Emily Dickinson
Moonlight and the sound of pines are things we all know
Zen mind and delusion distinguish sage and fool
Go back to the place where not one thought appears
How shall I put this into words for you?
—Han-shan Te-ch’ing (1546-1623)
Man [and Woman] with all his[/her] noble qualities, with sympathy
which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends
not only to other men but to the humblest living creature, with his
god-like intellect which has penetrated into the movements and
constitution of the solar system- with all these exalted power- Man
still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most
Intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.
—Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
Innate Reality (True Self)
In the spring, cherry blossoms,
In the summer the cuckoo,
In autumn the moon,
And in winter the snow, clear, cold.
—Dogen (1200-1253)
from KOAN PAIRS FROM WEST AND EAST by Eido Shimano:
Then Pilate said to Jesus, “Do you not hear how many things they witness against you?” And Jesus gave him no answer, not even one word.—New Testament
A monk asked Master Fuketsu, “Speaking and silence are concerned with manyness and oneness. How can we win through to neither way of going wrong?” Fuketsu said,
I’m always thinking
Of beyond the river,
The South,
In May
The Partridge
Calling
Amid
Hundreds of flowers fragrant.
—Gateless Gate, Case 24
from MUMONKAN, (THE) GATELESS BARRIER(S) by Mumon Ekai:
[A barrier is to (1) keep some out,
(2) get you to leave something behind,
and (3) incite you to break through.]
Case 1: A monk asked Joshu, “Does even a dog have the Buddha-nature? Joshu answered, “Mu.” (Meaning, “Nope.”)
What we need are not good teachers, but good students.
—Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, founding abbot of Zen Center (San Francisco) and author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind
There is a simple way to become a buddha: When you refrain from unwholesome actions, are not attached to birth and death, and are compassionate toward all sentient beings, respectful to seniors and kind to juniors, not excluding or desiring anything, with no designing thoughts or worries, you will be called a buddha. Do not seek anything else.
—Dogen, Shobogenzo Shoji (“Birth and Death”) in: Kazuaki Tanahashi, ed., Moon in a Dewdrop
MD: Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen, ed. by Kazuaki Tanahashi
PD: Points of Departure: Zen Buddhism with a Rinzai View, by Eido T. Shimano
Tao: Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell
ZGH: Zen Grove Handbook: For Zen Practice, tr. by Zenrin. The numbers are phrase
numbers.