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ZEN I
by John WorldPeace
Copyright 1996 by John WorldPeace Houston, Texas USA
All rights reserved.
To World Peace; "The possible dream"
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Zen Roots
On Believing in Mind
Zen Roots
The common legend is that the Zen tradition began with a smile.
Once when the Buddha was with his disciples on Mount Vulture, a high
ranking Hindu Brahman came to the Buddha and offered him a beautiful
golden sandlewood flower and requested that the Buddha preach a sermon.
However, when the Buddha assumed his seat of instruction, he said
nothing. He simply held up the golden flower before his listeners.
No one present understood the meaning except one of the Buddha's
disciples named Kasyapa who received the teaching immediately and
acknowledged it with a smile.
This, in essence, is the foundation of Zen teaching. It is that wordless
knowing of the essence and oneness of all things. It is the indescribable
knowing that brings peace.
This enlightenment, or satori as it is called in Zen, is beyond logic and
intellectual understanding. It is a knowing. It is what the Buddha called an
awakening. It is a transcendence of confusion in the manifestation of the
Infinite Potential.
Sometimes, as in this case, a smile signals the teacher as well as the student
that the student has awakened. Often it is those words "Ah-ha" that
immediately indicate a shift in one's state of mind; a shift from confusion in
the duality of life in this reality to a remembering of one's infinite, immortal
essence and one's oneness with all things.
Kasayapa became the first patriarch after the Buddha. The twenty-eighth
patriarch was Bodhidharma. Bodhidharma left India without leaving a
successor and went to China. There he took up residence at a monastery in
Wei and for nine years spent his time staring at a wall, meditating, and
waiting on someone to come along who was worthy of receiving his
teachings. It is said that he sat so long that his legs atrophied.
One day Bodhidharma was approached by a monk named Hui-ko, who was
to become Bodhidharma's successor as the Second Patriarch of Zen.
Hui-ko again and again asked Bodhidharma for instruction, but was always
refused. Yet he continued to sit in meditation outside the cave, waiting
patiently in the snow in hope that Bodhidharma would at last relent. In
desperation, he finally cut off his left arm and presented it to Bodhidharma
as a token of his agonized sincerity. At this Bodhidharma at last asked
Hui-ko what he wanted.
Hui-ko said, "I have no peace of mind. Please pacify my mind."
"Bring out your mind here before me," replied Bodhidharma, "and I will
pacify it!"
"But when I seek my mind," said Hui-ko, "I cannot find it."
"There snapped Bodhidharma, "I have pacified your mind!"
At this moment, Hui-ko was awakened and reached satori.
This is the way of Zen. One becomes aware or awakened at any time;
upon seeing a bird, turning around, eating a pear, staring at a cloud. It is
not the result of any particular act.
It is a transcendence outside sacred and holy scripture;
It has no dependence on words or letters;
It is a path directly to the infinite, immortal essence of one's being;
It is seeing into the oneness of all things,
and an understanding of one's relationship to the Infinite Potential.
On Believing in Mind
1.
The Infinite Potential knows no difficulties
Except that it refuses to make preferences:
Only when freed from hate and love,
Does it reveals itself fully and without disguise;
A tenth of an inch's difference,
And heaven and earth are set apart;
If you wish to see it before your own eyes,
Have no fixed thoughts either for or against it.
2.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
This is the confusion of the mind:
When the deep meaning of the Infinite Potential is not understood
Peace of mind is disturbed to no purpose.
3.
The Infinite Potential is perfect like unto vast space,
With nothing wanting, nothing superfluous:
It is indeed due to making choices
That its oneness is lost sight of.
4.
Pursue not the outer entanglements,
Dwell not in the inner void;
Be serene in the oneness of things,
and dualism vanishes by itself.
5.
When you strive to gain peace by stopping motion,
The peace thus gained is ever in motion;
As long as you tarry in the dualism,
How can you realize oneness?
6.
And when onenss is not thoroughly understood,
In two ways loss is sustained:
The denying of reality, asserts it,
And the asserting of emptiness, denies it.
7.
Wordiness and intellection
The more with them the more confused we become;
Away therefore with wordiness and intellection,
Then there is no place where we cannot easily pass.
8.
When we return to the root of oneness, we gain the meaning;
When we pursue external objects, we become confused.
The moment we are enlightened within,
We go beyond the confusion of a world confronting us.
9.
Transformations going on in an empty world which confronts us
Appear real all because of Confusion:
Try not to seek after the true,
Only cease to cherish opinions.
10.
Abide not with dualism,
Carefully avoid pursuing it;
As soon as you have right and wrong,
Confusion ensues, and Peace and Harmony is lost.
11.
The two exist because of the One,
But hold not even to this One;
when a mind is not confused,
The ten thousand things are not distinguished.
12.
No distinctions embraced, and no ten thousand things;
No disturbance going, and no mind set up to work:
the subject is quieted when the object ceases,
The object ceases when the subject is quieted.
13.
The object is an object for the subject,
The subject is a subject for the object:
Know that the relativity of the two
Rests ultimately on Oneness.
14.
In Oneness the two are not distinguished,
And each contains in itself all the ten thousand things;
When no distinction is made between this and that,
How can a one-sided and prejudiced view arise?
15.
The Infinite Potentail is calm and large-hearted,
For it nothing is easy, nothing is hard;
Small views are irresolute,
the more in haste, the tardier they go.
16.
Clinging is never kept within bounds,
It is sure to lead to confusion;
Quit it, and things follow their own courses,
While the essence of Oneness neither departs nor abides.
17.
Obey the nature of things, and you are in concord
with the Infinite Potential,
Calm and easy and free from confusion;
but when your thoughts are confused, you turn away from the truth,
They grow heavier and duller and are not at all sound.
18.
When they are not sound, the spirit is troubled;
What is the use of being partial and one-sided then?
If you want to walk the course of the One Vehicle,
Be not prejudiced against the six sense-objects.
19.
When you are not prejudiced against the six sense-objects,
You are then one with Enlightenment;
The wise are non-active,
while the confused bind themselves up in activity;
While residing within the Oneness of the Infinite Potential,
there is no individuation,
They in confusion attach themselves to particular objects.
It is their own mind that creates illusions
Is this not the greatest of all self-contradictions?
20.
The confused cherish the idea of rest and unrest,
The enlightened have no likes and dislikes:
All forms of dualism
Are contrived by the confused themselves.
They are like unto visions and flowers in the air;
Why should we trouble ourselves to take hold of them?
Gain and loss, right and wrong
Away with them once and for all!
21.
If an eye never falls asleep,
All dreams will by themselves cease:
If the Mind retains it absoluteness,
the ten thousand things are of one Suchness.
22.
When the deep mystery of Oneness is fathomed,
All of a sudden we forget the external entanglements;
When the ten thousand things are viewed in their Oneness,
We return to the origin and reside in peace and harmony.
23.
Forget the wherefore of things,
And we attain to a state beyond analogy;
Movement stopped and there is no movement,
Rest set in motion and there is no rest:
when dualism does not exist,
The peace and harmony of Oneness abides.
24.
The ultimate end of things where they cannot go any further
Is not bound by rules and measures:
In the Mind harmonious with the Infinite Potential
we have the principle of identity,
In which we find all strivings quieted;
Doubts and irresolutions are completely done away with,
and the right faith is straightened;
There is nothing left behind,
There is nothing retained,
All is void, lucid, and self-illuminating;
There is no exertion, no waste of energy
This is where thinking never attains,
This is where the imagination fails to measure.
25.
In the higher realm of true Oneness
There is neither "self" nor "other":
When direct identification is sought,
We can only say, "Not two".
26.
In being "not two" all is the same,
All that is is comprehended in it;
the wise in the ten quarters,
They all enter into this Absolute Reason.
27.
This Absolute Reason is beyond time and space,
For it one instant is ten thousand years;
Whether we see it or not,
It is manifested everywhere in all the ten quarters.
28.
Infinitely small things are as large as large things can be,
For here no external conditions exist:
Infinitely large thins are as small as small things can be,
For objective limits are here of no consideration.
29.
What is is the same as what is not,
What is not is the same as what is:
Where this sate of things fails to exist,
Indeed, do not tarrying there.
30.
One in All,
All in One
If only this is realized,
No more worry about your not being perfect!
31.
Where the Mind and each believing mind are not divided,
and undivided are each believing mind and Mind,
This is where words fail;
For it is not of the past, present, or the future.
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