Hafez

"I have learned so much from God that I can no longer call myself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew. The Truth has shared so much of Itself with me that I can no longer call myself a man, a woman, an angel, or even a pure Soul. Love has befriended me so completely it has turned to ash and freed me of every concept and image my mind has ever known."

Khwāja Shams-ud-Dīn Muḥammad Ḥāfeẓ-e Shīrāzī  (1325-1389). Known by his pen name Hafez.

Philip Kapleau Roshi

Question yourself day and night with the yearning to know and the conviction that you can know. Learn to live the way a fish swims or a bird flies – unself-consciously. Be aware and responsive. In whatever your right hand finds to do involve also your left. Avoid unnecessary judgments. Be modest and unassuming; offer your opinion only when it is asked for. Forget your good deeds and confess your bad ones. And never fail to relate every effect to the cause that produced it.

From  Zen: Merging of East and West  by Philip Kapleau Roshi

   Brother Lawrence

‘The first time I saw Brother Lawrence was upon the 3rd of August, 1666. He told me that God had done him a singular favour in his conversion at the age of eighteen.

During that winter, upon seeing a tree stripped of its leaves and considering that within a little time the leaves would be renewed and after that the flowers and fruit appear, Brother Lawrence received a high view of the Providence and Power of God which has never since been effaced from his soul.

This view had perfectly set him loose from the world and kindled in him such a love for God, that he could not tell whether it had increased in the forty years that he had lived since.’

(Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God, 1693, p1)

St. Romuald's Brief Rule For Camaldolese Monks

Sit in your cell as in paradise.
Put the whole world behind you and forget it.
Watch your thoughts like a good fisherman watching for fish,
The path you must follow is in the Psalms — never leave it.

If you have just come to the monastery,
and in spite of your good will you cannot accomplish what you want,
take every opportunity you can to sing the Psalms in your heart
and to understand them with your mind.

And if your mind wanders as you read, do not give up;
hurry back and apply your mind to the words once more.

Realize above all that you are in God's presence,
and stand there with the attitude of one who stands
before the emperor.

Empty yourself completely and sit waiting,
content with the grace of God,
like the chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing
but what his mother brings him.

Ryokan

Too lazy to be ambitious, I let the world take care of itself. Ten days' worth of rice in my bag; a bundle of twigs by the fireplace. Why chatter about delusion and enlightenment? Listening to the night rain on my roof, I sit comfortably, with both legs stretched out.

From "The Zen Poems of Ryokan."

 THOMAS MERTON ON WHAT ZEN IS NOT:

“Zen is not a systematic explanation of life, it is not an ideology, it is not a world view, it is not a theology of revelation and salvation, it is not a mystique, it is not a way of ascetic perfection, it is not mysticism as it is understood in the West; in fact it fits no convenient category of ours. Hence all our attempts to tag it and dispose of it with labels like pantheism, quietism, illuminism, Pelagianism, must be completely incongruous....But the chief characteristic of Zen is that it rejects all systematic elaborations in order to get back as far as possible to the pure, unarticulated and unexplained ground of direct experience. The direct experience of what? Life itself.”

 

Emptiness means to be full of everything, but empty of a separate existence. 

Thich Nhat Hanh (The Art of Living).

When we really meet the present moment, more than just the moment itself opens in it. In the depth of zen and contemplation, every moment can become a place where timelessness emerges—and the ordinary takes on new meaning.

-Willigis Jager

The bright moon cherishes being carried along with the flowing water.

Hongzhi Zhengjue

(1091 – 1157)

The Backward Step and the Upright Cauldron

With the depths clear, utterly silent, thoroughly illuminate the source, empty and spirited, vast and bright. Even though you have lucidly scrutinized your image and no shadow or echo meets it, searching throughout you see that you still have distinguished between the merits of a hundred undertakings. Then you must take the backward step and directly reach the middle of the circle from where light issues forth. Outstanding and independent, still you must abandon pretexts for merit. Carefully discern that naming engenders beings and that these rise and fall with intricacy. When you can share your self, then you may manage affairs, and you have the pure seal that stamps the ten thousand forms. Traveling the world, meeting conditions, the self joyfully enters samadhi in all delusions and accepts its function, which is to empty out the self so as not to be full of itself. The empty valley receives the clouds. The cold stream cleanses the moon. Not departing and not remaining, far beyond all the changes, you can give teachings without attainment or expectation. Everything everywhere comes back to the olden ground. Not a hair has been shifted, bent, or raised up. Despite a hundred uglinesses or a thousand stupidities, the upright cauldron is naturally beneficent. Zhaozhou's answers "wash out your bowl" and "drink your tea" do not require making arrangements; from the beginning they have always been perfectly apparent. Thoroughly observing each thing with the whole eye is a patch-robed monk's spontaneous conduct.

The Clouds' Fascination and the Moon's Cherishing

A person of the Way fundamentally does not dwell anywhere. The white clouds are fascinated with the green mountain's foundation. The bright moon cherishes being carried along with the flowing water. The clouds part and the mountain appears. The moon sets and the water is cool. Each bit of autumn contains vast interpenetration without bounds. Every dust is whole without reaching me; the ten thousand changes are stilled without shaking me. If you can sit here with stability then you can freely step across and engage the world with energy. There is an excellent saying that the six sense doors are not veiled, the highways in all directions have no footprints. Always arriving everywhere without being confused, gentle without hesitation, the perfected person knows where to go.

The Mind Ground Dharma Field and the Single Seed

The field of bright spirit is an ancient wilderness that does not change.  With boundless eagerness wander around this immaculate wide plain. The drifting clouds embrace the mountain; the family wind is relaxed and simple. The autumn waters display the moon in its pure brightness. Directly arriving here you will be able to recognise the mind ground dharma field that is the root source of the ten thousand forms germinating with unwithered fertility. These flowers and leaves are the whole world. So we are told that a single seed is an uncultivated field. Do not weed out the new shoots and the self will flower.

The Resting of the Streams and Tides

 Just resting is like the great ocean accepting hundreds of streams, all absorbed into one flavor. Freely going ahead is like the great surging tides riding on the wind, all coming onto this shore together. How could they not reach into the genuine source? How could they not realize the great function that appears before us? A patch-robed monk follows movement and responds to changes in total harmony. Moreover, haven't you yourself established the mind that thinks up all the illusory conditions? This insight must be perfectly incorporated.

(Translation by Taigen Daniel Leighton with Yi Wu)

The Snow Man

By Wallace Stevens

 

BLUE CLIFF RECORD [HEKIGAN ROKU]

Case 1:

Bodhi Dharma’s Vast Emptiness

The Emperor Bu (or Ryu) asked Bodhi Dharma, “What is the first principle of the holy teaching?”

Bodhi Dharma said, “Vast emptiness, nothing holy.”

The Emperor said, “Who is this person confronting me?”

Bodhi Dharma said, “I do not know him.”

The Emperor could not reach an accord.

Bhodi Dharma then crossed the river and went on to Gi. The Emperor later took up this matter with Shiko.

Shiko said, “Does your majesty know that person yet?"

The Emperor said, "I don't know him."

Shiko said, “That was the Bodhisattva Kannon conveying the mind-seal of the Buddha."

The Emperor felt regretful, and at once sought to have a messenger dispatched to urge him to return.

Shiko said, “There is no use in sending a messenger. Even if everyone in the country went after him, he would not return.”