When the workings
of the mind are stirred, a reflection
of a bow may be mistaken for a serpent,
a large rock in the underbrush may be seen
as a crouching lion; here is all killing energy.
When thoughts cease, even the violent can
become gentle, the ordinary can be
elegant; everywhere you see
true potential.
The body’s so
hard, such awful things inside it.
Expenditure and loss. Collateral and gift.
Yet inside the inside, stillness, if
you close your eyes.
We sense that
there is some sort of spirit
that loves birds and animals and the ants —
perhaps the same one who gave a radiance to you
in your mother’s womb. Is it logical you would be walking
around entirely orphaned now? The truth is you turned away
yourself, and decided to go into the dark alone. Now you
are tangled up in others, and have forgotten what
you once knew, and that’s why everything
you do has some weird
failure in it.
You
are the pure
awareness that illumines
consciousness and its infinite
content. Realize this and live
accordingly.
If you make slogans
based on words and sprout interpretations
based on objects, then you fall into the bag of antique curios,
and you will never be able to find this true realm
of absolute awareness beyond
sentiments.
At this stage you are free
to go forward in the wild field without choosing,
picking up whatever comes to hand: the meaning of the ancestral
teachers is clear in all that grows there. What’s more, the thickets of green
bamboo and the masses of yellow flowers and the fences and walls
and tiles and pebbles are inanimate things
teaching the dharma.
The water birds and the
groves of trees expound the truths of suffering,
emptiness, and selflessness. Based on the one true reality,
they extend objectless compassion, and from the great
jewel light of nirvana they reveal uncontrived,
surpassingly wondrous powers.
Changqing said,
“When you meet a companion
on the Path, stand shoulder to shoulder and
go on: then your lifetime of learning
will be completed.”
