Any activity or
occupation can be your practice.
As you go about what you do, simply detach
your mind from its objects. Opening
to emptiness in an alert state,
you become One
with what
is.
the progress of the world depends upon you:
i ching hexagram 45 / t’sui (gathering together)
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The field of boundless emptiness is what exists from the very beginning. You must purify, cure, grind down, or brush away all the tendencies you have fabricated into apparent habits. Then you can reside in the clear circle of brightness.
Utter emptiness has no image, upright independence does not rely on anything. Just expand and illuminate the original truth unconcerned by external conditions. Accordingly we are told to realize that not a single thing exists. In this field birth and death do not appear.
The deep source, transparent down to the bottom, can radiantly shine and can respond unencumbered to each speck of dust without becoming its partner. The subtlety of seeing and hearing transcends mere colours and sounds. The whole affair functions without leaving traces, and mirrors without obscurations.
Very naturally mind and dharmas emerge and harmonise. An Ancient said that non-mind embodies and fulfils the way of non-mind. Enacting and fulfilling the way of non-mind, finally you can rest. Proceeding you are able to guide the assembly. With thoughts clear, sitting silently, wander into the centre of the circle of wonder. This is how you must penetrate and study.
But here it is. Right here.
There’s no getting there or not getting there.
This is what zen calls the gate of sudden enlightenment.
If you hesitate, you’ve lost it. If you go after it,
you draw farther away from it.
When bodhisattvas who live a householder’s life cultivate the practices of home-leavers, it is like a lotus blooming in fire. It will always be hard to tame the will for fame and rank and power and position, not to mention all the myriad starting points of vexation and turmoil associated with the burning house of worldly existence. The only way is for you yourself to realize your fundamental, real, wondrous wholeness and reach the stage of great calm and stability and rest.
It would be best if you managed to cast off everything and be empty and ordinary. Thoroughly experience the absence of conditioned mind, and observe that all phenomena are like dreams and magical illusions. Be empty all the way through, and continue on clearing out your mind according to the time and the situation. Then you will have the same correct foundation as all the great enlightened laymen in buddhist tradition.
According to your own measure of power, you will transform those not yet enlightened so you can enter together into the uncontrived, uncluttered ocean of true nature. Then your life here on this earth will not be a loss.
how I nourish this phoenix mind
Woodcutters and fishermen know just how to use things.
What would they do with fancy chairs and meditation platforms?
In straw sandals and with a bamboo staff, I roam three thousand worlds
Dwelling by the water, feasting on the wind, year after year.
