Repeatedly
undergoing birth and death
is just due to grasping at objects.
When we reflect back on the mind that
grasps at objects, we see that the real identity
of mind is originally pure. Within this purity, grasping
mind does not exist. Within nirvana, fundamentally
there are no thoughts moving; the movement
is ever still. Being still, there is
no seeking.
Records of the Teachers and Students of the Lanka
Revise the story
you tell yourself about failure.
Consider yourself an apprentice in the world.
Learn all you can. Gain experience.
Keep moving.
Don’t
seek a Buddha,
don’t seek a teaching,
don’t seek a community.
Don’t seek virtue, knowledge,
intellectual understanding, and
so on. When feelings of defilement
and purity are ended, still don’t hold
to this non-seeking and consider it right.
Don’t dwell at the point of ending, and
don’t long for heavens or fear hells.
When you are unhindered by
bondage or freedom, then
this is called liberation
of mind and body in
all places.
So high you
cannot climb or get close to it;
raindrops scatter in the flying wind.
The gate is barred with green moss. Suddenly
forgetting thought, without attainment,
only then will you be sure
the gate has been open
all along.
Students,
sit earnestly in zazen,
and you will realize that everything
born in this world is ultimately empty,
including oneself and the original face of existence.
All things indeed emerge out of emptiness. This original
formlessness is “Buddha,” and all other similar terms — Buddha-
nature, Buddhahood, Buddha-mind, Awakened One, Patriarch,
God — are merely different expressions for the same
emptiness. Misunderstand this and you
will end up distracted
for eons.
