MEISTER ECKHART 1260 - 1327

The most powerful prayer, one well-nigh omnipotent, 

and the worthiest work of all, is the outcome of a quiet mind.

The quieter it is the more powerful, the worthier,

the deeper, the more telling and more perfect the prayer is.

To the quiet mind, all things are possible.

 

What is a quiet mind?  A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on,

nothing worries. Which, free from ties and from all self-seeking,

is wholly merged into the will of God and dead to its own.

When we plant in the soil of contemplation, 

we shall reap in the harvest of action.

 

There is a huge silence inside each of us 

that beckons us into itself and the recovery of our own silence 

can begin to teach us the language of heaven.

 

Spirituality is not to be learned by flight from the world 

or by running away from things or by turning solitary and

going apart from the world, rather we must learn an inner solitude 

wherever or with whomever we may be. 

We must learn to penetrate things and find God there.

 

The very best and noblest attainment in this life is to be silent 

and let God work and speak within.  Therefore it is said: 

In the midst of silence the secret word was spoken to me.

 

People should not worry as much about what they do,

but rather about what they are. If they and their ways are good 

then their deeds are radiant. If you were righteous then what you do will also be righteous. 

We should not think that holiness is based on what we do, 

but rather on what we are. For it is not our works which sanctify us 

but rather we who sanctify our works.

 

The soul in which this birth is to take place must keep absolutely pure and must

live in noble fashion quite collected and turned entirely inward, not running

out through the five senses into the multiplicity of creatures, but all in-

turned and collected and in the purest part, there, is that place.

Be sure of this absolute stillness for as long as possible is best of all for you.

 

To be receptive to the highest truth and to live therein one must be without

before-and-after, untrammelled by all their acts, or by any images they ever

perceived, empty and free, receiving the divine gift in the eternal now and

bearing it back unhindered in the light of the same with praise and thanksgiving.

if the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you it will be enough.

 

Above thought is the intellect which still seeks. It goes about looking, spies

out here and there, picks up and drops. But above the intellect that seeks

is another intellect which does not seek, but stays in its pure simple being which

is embraced in that light.

 

In silence one can most readily preserve their integrity. Be willing to be a

beginner every single morning. You may call God love you may call God

goodness but the best name for God is compassion.

The most important hour is always the present, the most significant person is

precisely the one sitting across from you right now.

The most necessary work is always love. Above all else know this, 

be prepared at all times for the gifts of God and be ready always for new ones, 

for God is a thousand times more ready to give than we are to receive.

Become aware of what is in you. Announce it, pronounce it, produce it 

and give birth to it.

 

Love will never be anywhere except where equality and unity are, and there can be

no love where love does not find equality or is not busy creating equality.

Nor is there any pleasure without equality. Practice equality in human

society, learn to love, esteem, consider all people like yourself. What happens to

another, bad or good, pain or joy, ought to be as if it happened to you.

Whether you like it or not, whether you know it or not, secretly all nature seeks

God and works towards truth. You need seek God neither below nor above.

God is no farther away than the door of the heart. God is like a person who

clears his throat while hiding and so gives himself away. God lies in wait for

us with nothing so much as love. But God can not know itself without me.

Those who dwell in God, dwell in the eternal now.

There exists only the present instant and now which always and without end is

itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow but only now as it was a thousand years

ago and as it will be a thousand years hence.

 

Truly it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us.

So when I am able to establish myself in nothing and nothing in myself, uprooting

and casting out what is in me, then I can pass into the naked being of God which

is the naked being of the Spirit. Since it is God's nature not to be like anyone,

we have to come to the state of being nothing in order to enter into the same

nature that that is.

 

There is a power in the soul which touches neither time nor flesh. Flowing

from the Spirit, remaining in the spirit, altogether spiritual.

But if you seek truth and seek it for your own profit and bliss 

then in truth you are not seeking God. We find people who like the taste of God in one way

and not in another and they want to have God only in one way of contemplation not in another.

I raised no objection, but they are quite wrong.

I declare truly that as long as anything is reflected in your mind which is not

the eternal word or which looks away from the eternal word then good as it

may be it is not the right thing.

For they alone are a good person who having said it nort all created things

stands facing straight with no side glances towards the eternal word and is

imaged and reflected there in righteousness.

The human spirit must transcend number and break through multiplicity and God

will break through them and just as that

breaks through into me, so I break through into that.

 

The only thing that burns in hell is the part of you that won't let go

of your life, your memories, your attachments. They burn them all away but they're not punishing you, they're freeing your soul.

If you're frightened of dying and you're holding on you'll see devils tearing

your life away. But if you've made your peace then the Devils are really angels

freeing you from the earth. For the person who has learned to let go and let be, nothing can ever get in the way again.

 

Treat all things as if they were loaned to you without any ownership with a body

or soul, sense or strength, external goods or honours, house or hall, everything. The

more deeply we are our true selves, the less self is in us.

To the extent that you eliminate ego from your activities, God comes into them,

but no more and no less. Begin with that and let it cost you your utter-most. In

this way and no other is true peace to be found.

Though it may be called an essence and unknowing, yet there is in it more than

all knowing and understanding without it.

For this unknowing lures and attracts you

from all understood things and from

yourself as well. For to be full of things is to be empty of

God, to be empty of things is to be full of God. The very best and highest

attainment in this life is to remain

still and let God act and speak in you.

But God is not found in the soul by adding anything, but by a process of

Subtraction.

 

Existence itself stands in need of nothing for it lacks nothing, whereas

everything else needs it because outside of it

there is nothing. Nothingness stands in need of existence as a sick man lacks

health and is in need. Health has no need

of a sick man. To want nothing, therefore,

characterizes the highest perfection, is

fullest and purest existence.

 

 When the soul wants to experience something,

she throws out an image in front of her and then steps into it.

But everything is meant to be lost that the soul may stand in unhampered

Nothingness. The shell must be cracked apart if what is in it

is to come out. For if you want the kernel you must break the shell, and therefore if you want to

discover nature's nakedness you must

destroy its symbols and the Farther you get in, the nearer you come to its essence. When you come to the one that gathers all things up into itself, there you must stay.

When a person sees the one in all things,

they are above mere understanding.

For God wants nothing from you but the gift of a peaceful heart.

-   Samaneri Jayasara

 

If you use one iota of strength to make the slightest effort to attain enlightenment, you will never get it. If you make such an effort, you are trying to grasp space with your hands, which is useless and a waste of your time!

-From: Discourses of Master Tsung Kao, The Practice of Zen, by Garma C. C. Chang

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. Poems:

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.

To learn the practice and maintain the way, 

is to abandon ego attachment and to follow the instructions of a teacher. 

The essence of this is by being free of greed (clinging to a fixed notion of the self).

 

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