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.”
Can you
marry your spirit and
body to the oneness and
never depart
from it?
Can you ride your breath
until your entire being is as supple
as the body of an infant?
Can you cleanse
your inner vision until
you see heaven in
very direction?
Can you love
people and govern them
without conniving and
manipulating?
Can you bear
heaven’s children in all
that you do and are?
Can you give the wisdom of
your heart precedence
over the learning of
your head?
Giving birth,
nourishing life,
shaping things
without possessing them,
serving without expectation of
reward, leading without dominating:
These are the profound virtues
of nature, and of nature’s
best things.
from The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,
ebooks & apps of the Tao the Ching, I Ching,
Wei wu Wei Ching, Hua hu Ching, and
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People who study the Way begin by having the faith to turn toward it. They are fed up with the vexations and filth of the world and are always afraid they will not be able to find a road of entry into the Way.
Once you have been directed by a teacher or else discovered on your own the originally inherently complete real mind, then no matter what situations or circumstances you encounter, you know for yourself where it’s really at.
But then if you hold fast to that real mind, the problem is you cannot get out, and it becomes a nest. You set up “illumination” and “function” in acts and states, snort and clap and glare and raise your eyebrows, deliberately putting on a scene.
When you meet a genuine expert of the school again, he removes all this knowledge and understanding for you, so you can merge directly with realization of the original uncontrived, unpreoccupied, unminding state. After this you will feel shame and repentance and know to cease and desist. You will proceed to vanish utterly, so that not even the sages can find you arising anywhere, much less anyone else.
That is why Yantou said, “Those people who actually realize it just keep serene and free at all times, without cravings, without dependence.” Isn’t this the door to peace and happiness?”
