Hakuin’s Chant in Praise of Zazen

(Zazen Wasen)

From the beginning all beings are Buddha. 
Like water and ice, 

without water no ice,

outside us no Buddhas.

 
How near the truth, 

yet how far we seek. 
Like one in water crying, "I thirst!" 
Like a child of a rich birth wandering poor on this earth,

we endlessly circle the six worlds.

The cause of our sorrow is ego delusion.
From dark path to dark path we've wandered in darkness, 
how can we be free from birth and death? 
The gateway to freedom is zazen samadhi -

beyond exaltation, beyond all our praises,

the pure Mahayana. 

Upholding the precepts, 

repentance and giving, 
the countless good deeds, 

and the way of right living 

all come from zazen. 

Thus one true Samadhi extinguishes evils;

It purifies karma, dissolving obstructions. 
Then where are the dark paths to lead us astray? 
The Pure Lotus Land is not far away. 

Hearing this truth, heart humble and grateful. 
To praise and embrace it, 

to practice its Wisdom, 
brings unending blessings. 

brings mountains of merit. 

And when we turn inward and prove our True-nature, 

that True-self is no-self, 

our own Self is no-self - 

we go beyond ego and past clever words. 

Then the gate to the oneness of cause-and-effect is

thrown open. 

Not two and not three, 

straight ahead runs the Way.

 
Our form now being no-form, 

in going and returning we never leave home. 
Our thought now being no-thought, 

our dancing and songs are the Voice of the Dharma. 

How vast is the heaven of boundless samadhi! 
How bright and transparent the moonlight of wisdom! 
What is there outside us? 

What is there we lack? 
Nirvana is openly shown to our eyes. 
This earth where we stand is the pure lotus land! 
And this very body - the body of Buddha.

(Rochester Zen Center translation)

 

SIDDHARAMESHWAR MAHARAJ

Non-Action

Many people feel that they should do something to acquire true spiritual knowledge. Then what remedy does the master prescribe to the disciple to acquire knowledge? If a man is healthy and he asks the doctor to cure his disease, what can he reply? Then he asks the same question to the chief of the village and to a lawyer, and they tell him, "You have become stout." Then he thinks, "What could be the reason that I have become stout?" He asks the doctor. The doctor feels his pulse and thinks, "What can I say to him, he has no disease? It can't be diagnosed." Then someone wise tells him, "You are affected by a terrible disease! What else can I say?

Pursuing absolute truth is similar to the example given above. People do so many things to attain Truth because they feel they must act. People tell them, “You have become an individual being (jiva).” Just brush it all aside, saying “Nothing has happened. Surely, nothing has happened.” Let your understanding be this, and thus become completely free. Can there be any talk about that which never existed? When you say “I”, the notions of “mine” and “yours” arise simultaneously, and this is the main problem.

There is one and only one truth. When you say, “My hand is paining me”, you know that you are not your hand. Knowledge is for learning what you have heard. One should know God as he is, then there is nothing left to achieve. When you understand the true meaning, then nothing is left to be done. So to understand truth, all that is illusory must be destroyed. People make all kinds of efforts to conquer the illusion, but the illusion is very tricky. It still resides in the one who says he has to conquer the illusion. So how should it be tackled? And what has to be done after one realises the truth. If you ask this, the answer is – “you have to do nothing regarding the body, your household, etc… let them be as they are.”

Suppose while you are asleep you had a dream that you met a bear while walking on the road. You wrestled with it, sat on its chest and finally killed it. The moment you awoke there was no bear to be seen. There was nothing. Similarly, to feel that, “I am realised”, “I am a saint”, “I am an aspirant”, or “I am after spiritual knowledge” is delusion. To feel that God “comes” and “goes away” is an illusion. Your illusionary concepts play the role of the bear – when you wrestle with them, sometimes they make you fall and at other times you make them fall. The master’s advice is, “Why do you meddle in this? All this chaos is the chaos of illusion.” Let the objects be wherever they are. If you try to manage affairs, you will forget the primordial Supreme. Doership is the illusion and non-doership is Self.

The aspirants always think of that which is untrue. They ask, "What shall I do, Maharaj?" The Guru asks him not to sniff tobacco, and the disciple immediate reacts by putting his nose into the box containing tobacco! Or he may say, "You say that all this is false, yet you yourself also indulge in it." There are only two things in the world: worldly existence and Reality. To take interest in what has happened is to get involved in worldly affairs. If you abandon all these things, true knowledge will dawn. This is why a man gets caught in bondage. Individuality is to involve the mind in the objective world, and Godhood is to do nothing. God is in the temple while there are rocks lying outside. Why should God value rocks? For this God [your own Self], to live among stones is called "individuality" or "ignorance". Saint Tukaram says, "God is quite ancient." God is prior to everything. A jnani has understood that the Supreme being [Paramatman], which is prior to all, is silently sitting in his heart. Leaving this God alone, people think of doing good or bad. That is the illusion for the individual being. The illusion makes man knowledgeable, makes him a narrator of the Vedas, and makes him play this worldly game. If a thing is good, it is good; if it is bad, it is bad; if one is wealthy, he is wealthy; and if one is poor, he is poor. Who is the real aspirant? He is the one who has understood the illusion is nothing. However much you may have wrestled with the bear in a dream, it is still all false. But the illusion does not allow the aspirant to be victorious. The concept of "I" and "you" is a delusion, as is the concept of "aspirant". Even the idea "I am God" is a delusion. This world itself is rooted in delusion. If I and you are God, then why should there be any supposition? As told before, "Abandon everything!" Ignorant people start beating cymbals for worship. This knowledge is actually ignorance. Hence, even this knowledge has no true value. Only knowledge of the Self destroys ignorance. The individual "I" is the one who dabbles in the illusion. So just do nothing. The aspirant is tortured by those who tell him, "You must do this and you must do that." All this is to fool him. The illusion has long horns on his head. If you supersedes him, he gores you, and if you fall behind, he kicks you. Thus, the key to transcending the illusion lies in doing nothing. All happiness, misery, worry and anxiety are inherent in the illusion. You have to do nothing, you have to abandon nothing. In Dasbodh, Saint Ramdas says, "Action and non-action are illusion." So those who have not understood this illusion may dance wild. The illusion is dreamlike. If you wrestle with a bear in a dream, your victory or defeat is irrelevant. So it is said that the illusion is unconquerable, even for Lord Brahma, Vishnu, Harihera, etc., since they all take it to be true. Vishnu said, "I shall protect them", so he became a four-handed God. This is an illusion, yet all are engrossed in it. Suppose a barren woman's son said that he had held a torch at Maruti's [an eternal celibate] wedding. This world in the form of illusion is just as fictitious. So those who say they have conquered the illusion are thoroughly deceived. The devotee of God does not experience the happiness or misery arising from the illusion. His glory is small, but higher than that of the gods Hari and Hara. The reason is that he takes everything as untrue and knows that there is no action, cause or doer. Wherever there is a feeling of cause and effect, it is due to the feeling "I am not Reality." This feeling is the effect and the "I" is the cause. When you feel that you are not Reality, you become an individual "I". When you feel that you are neither an "I" nor Shiva, you become Final Reality. "I", "good", "bad, etc., all these are signs of delusion rising up from the material world. All this is a game of "blind man"s bluff". Reality is the one who covers the players eyes, and hence, he is not part of the game. He blindfolds the participants only once. Knowledge and ignorance are the material cause of the world [prakriti]. This itself is delusion. Who expounds the scriptures and who conveys knowledge? Chanting, penance, methods, study, etc., are all the mesmeric activities of the illusion. You cross over the material world only when you are free from all "duties". These are all matters at this initial stage. So long as there is knowledge, there is delusion. Reject whatever you suppose you are. "Reject" means do not dabble in anything whatsoever. Continue your worship: "I am the Self, I am Reality, I am not the body, I am not the name." The one who is speaking inside is "I", is God. Just be convinced of that. There was a princess who wanted to find a lazy man to marry. Accordingly, an announcement was made in every village. Prospective suitors claiming to be lazy soon arrived at the palace. The princess wanted to assure the validity of their claims. One man pretended to be so lazy by arriving on the shoulders of someone else. Another feigned silence in support of his claim, and another refrained from using his hands to eat food. There were as many pretensions of laziness as there were suitors. The princess rejected them all. But there was one shrewd fellow who simply informed the princess that he had come to get married to her. She asked him, "How can you prove that you are lazy?" He replied, "All the others are merely pretending. They are only actors and are not lazy at all." Maintaining silence, not walking, and not eating with the hands – these are all external actions meant to deceive. These qualities are not of the nature of a really lazy person. Similarly, for a jnani, it is absolutely evident that he is Reality. The true mark of a saint is taking the world to be untrue. If it is not understood that it is in the nature of the material world to be false, then one cannot get "married to the princess." Laziness does not mean abandoning outward actions. The individual "I" has the habit of engaging itself in constant activity. To do something is in the nature of the body consciousness. What has to be done, and for whose sake? Illusion implies "my idea". There is a proverb: "He started worshipping God when he got tired of doing things." If you reject all that is untrue, then you become God Reality. The illusion is believing that "I ought to first do this and that, manage this and that, become rich, and then afterwards I will become a saint and start acting differently." So leave things exactly as they are. If you meddle in things, your body consciousness will get enhanced and you will constantly feel that you ought to be doing something. This is the obstruction for attaining Final Reality. When you are not the body, then it is useless to think about wealth or poverty. All is untrue. Then why this unnecessary query? Godhood is "not to do anything." We say, "Remain quiet, like God", but in actuality we indulge ourselves in body consciousness. To not worry about anything and to be at peace is called "OM Shanti". This is my blessing to you all.

https://www.inner-quest.org/Siddharameshwar_Non-Action.htm

 

~Words from Kusan Sunim

 

Words from Our Ancestors:

A monk asked Zhaozhou, "Does a dog have Buddha-nature or not?"

Zhaozhou said, "Mu."

This one word "mu" is a knife to sunder the doubting mind of birth and death. The handle of this knife is in one's own hand alone: you can't have anyone else wield it for you; to succeed you must take hold of it yourself. You consent to take hold of it yourself only if you can abandon your life. If you cannot abandon your life, just keep to where your doubt remains unbroken for awhile: suddenly you'll consent to abandon your life, and then you'll be done....You won't have to ask anyone else...

During your daily activities twenty four hours a day, you shouldn't hold to birth and death and the Buddha Path as existent, nor should you deny them as nonexistent. Just contemplate this: A monk asked Zhaozhou, "Does a dog have Buddha-nature or not?" ZhaoZhou said, "Mu."

 - from a letter of Dahui to a student in Swampland Flowers translated by Christopher Cleary

Words from Don:

We make use of the expedients passed down in our tradition: 'sayings', koans, encounter dialogues, poems. We engage with, inhabit, enliven them in our practice. The process does not require anyone else's presence or permission. As Yasutani reminded us, "You sit alone, You awaken alone, You die alone." 

The great matter of birth and death is your matter to resolve. No one else can do it for you; no teachings will settle it; guidance can be reduced to "let go of false thinking."

"You can not grasp it; you can not reject it."

 -From Hilo Zen Circle Newsletter

Guishan Lingyou (771-853)

Kuei-shan asked Yun-yen

“What is the seat of enlightenment?”

Yun-yen said,

“Freedom from artificiality.”

The Sutra says, 'To behold the Buddha-nature one must wait for the right moment and the right conditions. When the time comes, one is awakened as from a dream. It is as if one's memory recalls something long forgotten. One realizes that what is obtained is one's own and not from outside one's self.' Thus an ancient patriarch said, 'After enlightenment one is still the same as one was before. There is no mind and there is no Dharma.'

One is simply free from unreality and delusion. The mind of the ordinary man is the same as that of the sage because the Original Mind is perfect and complete in itself. When you have attained this recognition, hold on to what you have achieved."

One day Master Kuei-shan Ling-yu came into the assembly and said: 
"The mind of one who understands Ch'an is plain and straightforward without pretense.
It has neither front nor back and is without deceit or delusion.

Every hour of the day, what one hears and sees are ordinary things and ordinary actions. Nothing is distorted. One does not need to shut one's eyes and ears to be non-attached to things.

In the early days many sages stressed the follies and dangers of impurity.

When delusion, perverted views, and bad thinking habits are eliminated, the mind is as clear and tranquil as the autumn stream.

It is pure and quiescent, placid and free from attachment. Therefore he who is like this is called a Ch'annist, a man of non-attachment to things."

During an assembly period a monk asked whether the man who has achieved sudden enlightenment still requires self-cultivation. The Master answered, "If he should be truly enlightened, achieving his original nature and realizing himself, then the question of self-cultivation or non-cultivation is beside the point.

Through concentration a devotee may gain thoughtless thought. Thereby he is suddenly enlightened and realizes his original nature. However, there is still a basic delusion without beginning and without end, which cannot be entirely eliminated. Therefore the elimination of the manifestation of karma, which causes the remaining delusion to come to the surface, should be taught. This is cultivation. There is no other way of cultivation. When one hears the Truth one penetrates immediately to the Ultimate Reality, the realization of which is profound and wondrous. The mind is illuminated naturally and perfectly, free from confusion.

On the other hand, in the present day world there are numerous theories being expounded about Buddhism. These theories are advocated by those who wish to earn a seat in the temple and wear an abbot's robe to justify their work. But reality itself cannot be stained by even a speck of dust, and no action can distort the truth. When the approach to enlightenment is like the swift thrust of a sword to the center of things, then both worldliness and holiness are completely eliminated and Absolute Reality is revealed. Thus the One and the Many are identified. This is the Suchness of Buddha."

https://terebess.hu/zen/guishan.html

We can take Layman Pang's last words to the Prefect Yu Ti as guidance:

"I beg you just to regard as empty all that is existent, and beware of taking as real all that is non-existent."

Thomas A Kempis

 Of a Pure Mind, and Simple Intention

By two wings, a man is lifted up from things earthly, namely, by Simplicity and Purity. Simplicity ought to be in our intention, purity in our affection. Simplicity tendeth toward God, purity apprehendeth and tasteth Him.

No good action will hinder thee if thou be inwardly free from inordinate affection. If thou intend and seek nothing else but the will of God and the good of thy neighbour, thou shalt thoroughly enjoy inward liberty.

If thy heart were right, then every creature would be unto thee a looking-glass of life and a book of holy doctrine. There is no creature so small and mean, that it doth not set forth the goodness of God. If thou wert inwardly good and pure, then wouldest thou be able to see and understand all things well without hindrance. A pure heart penetrateth heaven and hell.

  

Such as everyone is inwardly, so he judgeth outwardly. If there is joy in the world surely a man of pure heart possesseth it. And if there be anywhere tribulation and affliction, an evil conscience knoweth it.

As iron put into the fire loseth its rust, and becometh altogether white and glowing, so he that wholly turneth himself unto God, putteth off all slothfulness, and is transformed into a new man.

When a man beginneth to grow lukewarm, then he is afraid of a little labour, and willingly receiveth outward comfort. But when he once beginneth to overcome himself perfectly, and to walk manfully in the way of God; then he esteemeth less those things, which before he felt grievous unto him.

Thomas A Kempis b. 1379 or 1380, d. 1471).  The Imitation of Christ. The 

Harvard Classics. 1909-14

Yamada Roshi and Aitken Roshi. Koko An Zendo, Honolulu. Jan. 1981

Yuanwu (1063-1135)

Fundamentally, this great light is there with each and every person right where they stand – empty clear through, spiritually aware, all-pervasive, it is called the scenery of the fundamental ground.

Sentient beings and buddhas are both inherently equipped with it. It is perfectly fluid and boundless, fusing everything within it. It is within your own heart and is the basis of your physical body and of the five clusters of form, sensation, conception, motivational synthesis, and consciousness. It has never been defiled or stained, and its fundamental nature is still and silent.

False thoughts suddenly arise and cover it over and block it off and confine it within the six sense faculties and sense objects. Sense faculties and sense objects are paired off, and you get stuck and begin clinging and getting attached. You grasp at all the various objects and scenes, and produce all sorts of false thoughts, and sink down into the toils of birth and death, unable to gain liberation.

All the buddhas and ancestral teachers awakened to this true source and penetrated clear through to the fundamental basis. They took pity on all the sentient beings sunk in the cycle of birth and death and were inspired by great compassion, so they appeared in the world precisely for this reason. It was also for this reason that Bodhidharma came from the West with the special practice outside of doctrine.

The most important thing is for people of great faculties and sharp wisdom to turn the light of mind around and shine back and clearly awaken to this mind before a single thought is born. This mind can produce all world-transcending and worldly phenomena. When it is forever stamped with enlightenment, your inner heart is independent and transcendent and brimming over with life. As soon as you rouse your conditioned mind and set errant thoughts moving, then you have obscured this fundamental clarity.

If you want to pass through easily and directly right now, just let your body and mind become thoroughly empty, so it is vacant and silent yet aware and luminous. Inwardly, forget all your conceptions of self, and outwardly, cut off all sensory defilements. When inside and outside are clear all the way through, there is just one true reality. Then eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and conceptual mind, form, sound, smell, flavor, touch, and conceptualized phenomena – all of these are established based on that one reality. This one reality stands free of and transcends all the myriad entangling phenomena. The myriad phenomena have never had any fixed characteristics – they are all transformations based on this light.

If you can trust in this oneness, then with one comprehended, and with one illuminated, all are illuminated. Then in whatever you do, it can all be the indestructible true essence of great liberation from top to bottom.

You must awaken to this mind first, and afterward cultivate all forms of good. Haven’t you seen this story? The renowned poet Bo Juyi asked the Bird’s Nest Monk, “What is the Way?” The Bird’s Nest Monk said “Don’t do any evils, do all forms of good.” Bo Juyi said “Even a three-year-old could say this.” The Bird’s Nest Monk said, “Though a three-year-old might be able to say it, an eighty-year-old might not be able to carry it out.”

Thus we must search out our faults and cultivate practice; this is like the eyes and the feet depending on each other. If you are able to refrain from doing any evil and refine your practice of the many forms of good, even if you only uphold the elementary forms of discipline and virtue, you will be able to avoid sinking down to the levels of animals, hungry ghosts and hell-beings. This is even more the case if you first awaken to the indestructible essence of the wondrous, illuminated true mind and after that cultivate practice to the best of your ability and carry out all forms of virtuous conduct.

Let no one be deluded about cause and effect. You must realize that the causal basis of the hells and the heavens is all formed by your own inherent mind. You must keep this mind balanced and in equanimity, without deluded ideas of self and others, without arbitrary loves and hates, without grasping and rejecting, without notions of gain and loss. Go on gradually nurturing this for a long time, perhaps twenty or thirty years. Whether you encounter favourable or adverse conditions, do not retreat or regress—then when you come to the juncture between life and death [the last moment of your life], you will naturally be set free and not be afraid. As the saying goes “Truth requires sudden awakening, but the phenomenal level calls for gradual cultivation”.

I often see those who are trying to study Buddhism just use their worldly intelligence to sift among the verbal teachings of the buddhas and ancestral teachers, trying to pick out especially wondrous sayings to use as conversation pieces to display their ability and understanding. This is not the correct view of the matter. You must abandon your worldly mentality and sit quietly with mind silent. Forget entangling causes and investigate with your whole being. When you are thoroughly clear then whatever you bring forth from your own inexhaustible treasury of priceless jewels is sure to be genuine and real.

So first you must awaken to the Fundamental and clearly see the true essence where mind equals Buddha. Detach from all false entanglements and become free and clean. After that, respectfully practice all forms of good, and arouse great compassion to bring benefits to all sentient beings. In all that you do, be even and balanced and attuned to the inherent equality of all things – be selfless and have no attachments. When wondrous wisdom manifests itself and you penetrate through to the basic essence, all your deeds will be wonder-working. Thus it is said, ‘Just manage to accept the truth – you won’t be deceived.”

Make enlightenment your standard, and don’t feel bad if it is slow in coming. Take care!

From:  Zen Letters - Teachings of Yuanwu. Translated by J.C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary