If you read widely in poetry, philosophy, Buddhist studies, contemporary self-help material, and many other fields, you are bound to come upon phrases, paragraphs, and whole pages that seem, somehow, related to Zen. So, what should be the relationship of your Zen practise to your reading? You will get all sorts of advice on this topic and I will offer mine.

Before you have had a genuine opening, the words you read to try to gain an understanding of the great matter birth and death, even if they are from a master like Dogen or Hakuin, may be inspiring but, at the same time, confusing. If you persist in trying to “make sense” of them, there is a risk. You could gain an intellectual grasp of their intent and think, mistakenly, “I understand about form and emptiness” or “All beings are inherently enlightened so that so nothing needs to be done.” If you adopt such views it is as if you picked up heavy planks to add to and reinforce the structure, the fortress, of the self.

- Don Stoddard

 Eihei Dogen 1200-1253

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water

-The moon does not get wet nor is the water broken.

Although its light is wide and great, 

The moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide.

The whole moon and the entire sky 

Are reflected in one dew drop on the grass.

Drifting pitifully in the whirlwind of birth and death,

As if wandering in a dream,

In the midst of illusion I awaken to the true path.

There is one more matter I must not neglect, 

But I need not bother now, 

As I listen to the sound of the evening rain falling on the roof of my 

Temple retreat in the deep grass of Fukakusa.

Coming, going, 

The water birds 

Don't leave a trace, 

Don't follow a path.

Amid the deepest mountain paths, the retreat  I find 

- none other than my primordial home Satori.

All last night and this morning  

-still snow falling in the deepest mountains.

Ah, to see the autumn leaves scattering in my home.

Night and day, the way of Dharma as everyday life.

In each act our hearts resonate with the call of the Sutra.

The cry of monkeys resounding from the mountain peaks 

Echoing in the valleys below 

- the sound of the Sutra being preached.

Are not even the sounds of the bustling marketplace 

the preaching of the Dharma?

Colours of the mountains, streams in the valleys, 

One in all, all in one, the voice and body of our Shakyamuni Buddha.

Everyone admires a graceful horse 

Galloping past the streaming sunlight, 

But few realize that this fleeting image 

Is itself the way of Dharma.

The four horses of suffering,

The four chariots of compassion - 

How can one find the true way without riding upon them?

The true person is not anyone in particular, 

But like the deep blue colour of the limitless sky 

It is everyone, everywhere in the world.

Contemplating the clear moon, 

Reflecting a mind empty as the open sky - 

Drawn by its beauty, 

I lose myself in the shadows it casts.

Mind has no substance that one can see - 

The only binding of the body is like the dew and frost.

Not only earthly blossoms, but this mind, 

Pure as a celestial garden of an immaculate sky, 

Offered to all the Buddhas,

Manifest here, there, and everywhere

The moon mirrored by a mind free of all distractions.

Even the waves breaking are reflecting its light.

The moon reflected

In a mind clear

As still water:

Even the waves, breaking,

Are reflecting its light.

Because the mind is free, 

listening to the rain 

Dripping from the eaves, 

The drops become one with me

In the spring, cherry blossoms,

In the summer the cuckoo,

In autumn the moon, and in

Winter the snow, clear, cold.

To what shall

I liken the world?

Moonlight, reflected

In dewdrops,

Shaken from a crane’s bill.

The true person is

Not anyone in particular;

But, like the deep blue colour

Of the limitless sky,

It is everyone, everywhere in the world.

In the stream,

Rushing past

To the dusty world,

My fleeting form

Casts no reflection.

Because the mind is free —

Listening to the rain

Dripping from the eaves,

The drops become

One with me.

The migrating bird

Leaves no trace behind

And does not need a guide.

The bridge of dreams

Floating on the brief spring night

Soon breaks off:

Now from the mountaintop a cloud

Takes leave into the open sky.

Joyful in this mountain retreat yet still feeling melancholy.

Studying the Lotus Sutra every day, 

practicing zazen single-mindedly.

What do love and hate matter when I'm here alone,

listening to the sound of the rain late in this autumn evening.

Treading along in this dreamlike, illusory realm,

Without looking for the traces I may have left;

A cuckoo’s song beckons me to return home,

Hearing this, I tilt my head to see

Who has told me to turn back;

But do not ask me where I am going,

As I travel in this limitless world,

Where every step I take is my home.

 

Jijuyu Zanmai – Master Dogen’s Self-Receiving and Employing Samadhi

The Jijuyu Zanmai is the second section of the first part of Dogen’s Bendowa – ‘The Endeavor of the Way’ and concerns the experience of zazen itself. The whole text of the Bendowa is held in high esteem as being Dogen’s best and most comprehensible explanation of his understanding of Zen and the Dharma. There are many translations of this section, the Jijuyu Zanmai, which is chanted in some Soto Zen monasteries. The text below is interpreted by the San Francisco Zen Center, as is the translation of the title as Self-Receiving and Employing Samadhi. ‘Ji’ means self or in oneself, ‘ju’ means to receive or accept and ‘yu’ means to work or function in concentrated union. ‘Zanmai’ is the Japanese term for Samadhi, focused meditation in the practice of zazen.

Now, all ancestors and all buddhas who uphold buddha-dharma have made it the true path of enlightenment to sit upright practicing in the midst of self-fulfilling samadhi. Those who attained enlightenment in India and China followed this way. It was done so because teachers and disciples personally transmitted this excellent method as the essence of the teaching.

In the authentic tradition of our teaching, it is said that this directly transmitted, straightforward buddha-dharma is the unsurpassable of the unsurpassable. From the first time you meet a master, without engaging in incense offering, bowing, chanting Buddha’s name, repentance, or reading scriptures, you should just wholeheartedly sit, and thus drop away body and mind.

When even for a moment you express the Buddha’s seal in the three actions by sitting upright in samadhi, the whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha’s seal and the entire sky turns into enlightenment. Because of this all buddha tathagatas as the original source increase their dharma bliss and renew their magnificence in the awakening of the way. Furthermore, all beings in the ten directions and the six realms, including the three lower realms, at once obtain pure body and mind, realize the state of great emancipation, and manifest the original face. At this time, all things realize correct awakening; myriad objects partake of the buddha body; and sitting upright under the bodhi tree, you immediately leap beyond the boundary of awakening. At this moment you turn the unsurpassably great dharma wheel and expound the profound wisdom, ultimate and unconditioned.

Because such broad awakening resonates back to you and helps you inconceivably, you will in zazen unmistakably drop away body and mind, cutting off the various defiled thoughts from the past, and realize essential buddha-dharma. Thus you will raise up buddha activity at innumerable practice places of buddha tathagatas everywhere, cause everyone to have the opportunity of ongoing buddhahood, and vigorously uplift the ongoing buddha-dharma.

Because earth, grass, trees, walls, tiles, and pebbles all engage in buddha activity, those who receive the benefit of wind and water caused by them are inconceivably helped by the Buddha’s guidance, splendid and unthinkable, and awaken intimately to themselves. Those who receive these water and fire benefits spread the Buddha’s guidance based on original awakening. Because of this, all those 28 who live with you and speak with you will obtain endless buddha virtue and will unroll widely inside and outside of the entire universe, the endless, unremitting, unthinkable, unnamable buddha-dharma.

All this, however, does not appear within perception, because it is unconstructedness in stillness-it is immediate realization. If practice and realization were two things, as it appears to an ordinary person, each could be recognized separately. But what can be met with recognition is not realization itself, because realization is not reached by a deluded mind. In stillness, mind and object merge in realization and go beyond enlightenment; nevertheless, because you are in the state of self-fulfilling samadhi, without disturbing its quality or moving a particle you extend the Buddha’s great activity, the incomparably profound and subtle teaching.

Grass, trees, and lands which are embraced by this teaching together radiate a great light and endlessly expound the inconceivable, profound dharma. Grass, trees, and walls bring forth the teaching for all beings, common people as well as sages. And they in accord extend this dharma for the sake of grass, trees, and walls. Thus, the realm of self-awakening and awakening others invariably holds the mark of realization with nothing lacking, and realization itself is manifested without ceasing for a moment.

This being so, the zazen of even one person at one moment imperceptibly accords with all things and fully resonates through all time. Thus in the past, future, and present of the limitless universe this zazen carries on the Buddha’s teaching endlessly. Each moment of zazen is equally wholeness of practice, equally wholeness of realization.

This is not only practice while sitting, it is like a hammer striking emptiness: before and after, its exquisite peal permeates everywhere. How can it be limited to this moment? Hundreds of things all manifest original practice from the original face; it is impossible to measure. Know that even if all buddhas of the ten directions, as innumerable as the sands of the Ganges, exert their strength and with the buddhas’ wisdom try to measure the merit of one person’s zazen, they will not be able to fully comprehend it.

Eihei Dogen (1200-1253)

November 22, 2019 Vanessa Able

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.”

Faith in Mind (Hsin Hsin Ming)
by Seng-T’san – The Third Patriarch of Zen

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.

If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.

When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

The Way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
Be serene in the oneness of things
and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.

When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity
your very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other,
you will never know Oneness.

Those who do not live in the single Way
fail in both activity and passivity,
assertion and denial.
To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality;
to assert the emptiness of things
is to miss their reality.

The more you talk and think about it,
the further astray you wander from the truth.
Stop talking and thinking
and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

To return to the root is to find the meaning,
but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.
At the moment of inner enlightenment,
there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness.
The changes that appear to occur in the empty world
we call real only because of our ignorance.
Do not search for the truth;
only cease to cherish opinions.

Do not remain in the dualistic state;
avoid such pursuits carefully.
If there is even a trace
of this and that, of right and wrong,
the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.
Although all dualities come from the One,
do not be attached even to this One.

When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,
nothing in the world can offend,
and when a thing can no longer offend,
it ceases to exist in the old way.

When no discriminating thoughts arise,
the old mind ceases to exist.
When thought objects vanish,
the thinking-subject vanishes,
and when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.

Things are objects because there is a subject or mind;
and the mind is a subject because there are objects.
Understand the relativity of these two
and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness.
In this Emptiness the two are indistinguishable
and each contains in itself the whole world.
If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine
you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.

To live in the Great Way
is neither easy nor difficult.
But those with limited views
are fearful and irresolute;
the faster they hurry, the slower they go.

Clinging cannot be limited;
even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment
is to go astray.
Just let things be in their own way
and there will be neither coming nor going.

Obey the nature of things
and you will walk freely and undisturbed.
When thought is in bondage the truth is hidden,
for everything is murky and unclear.
The burdensome practice of judging
brings annoyance and weariness.
What benefit can be derived
from distinctions and separations?

If you wish to move in the One Way
do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.
Indeed, to accept them fully
is identical with true Enlightenment.

The wise man strives to no goals
but the foolish man fetters himself.
There is one Dharma, not many;
distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant.
To seek Mind with discriminating mind
is the greatest of all mistakes.

Rest and unrest derive from illusion;
with enlightenment there is no liking and disliking.
All dualities come from ignorant inference.
They are like dreams of flowers in air:
foolish to try to grasp them.
Gain and loss, right and wrong;
such thoughts must finally be abolished at once.

If the eye never sleeps,
all dreams will naturally cease.
If the mind makes no discriminations,
the ten thousand things
are as they are, of single essence.

To understand the mystery of this One-essence
is to be released from all entanglements.
When all things are seen equally
the timeless Self-essence is reached.
No comparisons or analogies are possible
in this causeless, relationless state.
Consider motion in stillness
and stillness in motion;
both movement and stillness disappear.
When such dualities cease to exist
Oneness itself cannot exist.
To this ultimate finality
no law or description applies.

For the unified mind in accord with the Way
all self-centered striving ceases.
Doubts and irresolutions vanish
and life in true faith is possible.

With a single stroke we are freed from bondage;
nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing.
All is empty, clear, self-illuminating,
with no exertion of the mind's power.
Here thought, feeling, knowledge, and imagination are of no value.
In this world of Suchness
there is neither self nor other-than-self.

To come directly into harmony with this reality
just simply say when doubt arises, "Not two."
In this "not two" nothing is separate,
nothing is excluded.
No matter when or where,
enlightenment means entering this truth.
And this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space;
in it a single thought is ten thousand years.

Emptiness here, Emptiness there,
but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes.

Infinitely large and infinitely small;
no difference, for definitions have vanished
and no boundaries are seen.
So too with Being and non-Being.
Waste no time in doubts and arguments
that have nothing to do with this.

One thing, all things;
move among and intermingle,
without distinction.
To live in this realization
is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.
To live in this faith is the road to nonduality,
because the nondual is one with the trusting mind.

Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is

no yesterday

no tomorrow

no today.

Translated from the Chinese by Richard B. Clarke

Pai-chang

"Having explained as far as that the present mirror awareness is your own Buddha, this is the elementary good ("good in the beginning"). Not to keep dwelling in the immediate mirror awareness is the intermediate good ("good in the middle"). Furthermore not to make an understanding of non-dwelling is the final good."

- Sayings and Doings of Pai-Chang, P41. Translated by

Thomas Cleary

"Things have never declared themselves empty, nor do they declare themselves form; and they do not declare themselves right, wrong, defiled, or pure. Nor is there a mind that binds and fetters people. It is just because people themselves give rise to vain and arbitrary attachments that they create so many kinds of understanding, produce so many kinds of opinion, and give rise to many various likes and fears. Just understand that things do not originate of themselves. All of them come into existence from your own single mental impulse of imagination mistakenly clinging to appearances. If you know that mind and objects fundamentally do not contact each other, you will be set free on the spot. Everything is in a state of quiescence right where it is; this very place is the site of enlightenment."

- Thomas Cleary, The Zen Reader (p. 55). Shambhala. Kindle Edition. 

Daowu asked, "What is the great meaning of the Buddhadharma?"
Shitou said, "Not attaining. Not knowing."
Daowu asked, "Is there anything beyond this?"
Shitou said, "The sky does not obstruct the white clouds flight."

SESSHIN

Sesshin are intensive, full-time retreats that last from two to eight days. Sesshin means to touch, receive, and convey the mind. Participants dedicate themselves to their zazen practice during sesshin and organize their lives so that all other cares can be left aside for the entire practice period. During sesshin, participants do zazen, eat, perform jobs to sustain the group, and rest.

“To touch the mind is to touch that which is not born and does not die; it does not come or go, and is always at rest. It is infinite emptiness – empty infinity – the vast and fathomless Dharma which you have vowed to understand.”

– Robert Aitken,  Encouraging Words: Zen Buddhist Teachings for Western Students.

Pai-chang
Having explained as far as that the present mirror awareness is your own Buddha, this is the elementary good ("good in the beginning"). Not to keep dwelling in the immediate mirror awareness is the intermediate good ("good in the middle"). Furthermore not to make an understanding of nondwelling is the final good.

      From: Sayings and Doings of Pai-Chang, P41. Translated by Thomas Cleary

Dogen Zenji

“This patch-robed monk’s staff is as black as lacquer.

It is not in the class of ordinary worldly wood.

But breaks apart traps and snares and actualizes reality.

In the snow, a plum blossom suddenly opens on a branch tip.”

 

“Without begrudging any effort in nurturing the way, for you I will demonstrate the precise meaning of the ultimate truth of Buddha. It is: if you do not hold onto a single phrase or half a verse, a bit of talk or a small expression, in this lump of red flesh you will have some accord with the clear, cool ground. If you hold on to a single word or half a phrase of the Buddha ancestors’ sayings or the teaching stories from the ancestral gate, they will become dangerous poisons. If you want to understand this mountain monk’s activity, do not remember these comments. Truly avoid being caught up in thinking.”