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.”
