If you forget your
feelings about things of the world,
they become enlightening teachings.
If you get emotional about enlightening
teaching, it becomes a worldly
thing.
“teacher to seven emperors”
Posts Tagged → wei wu wei
letter to a wild monk
grass and trees have buddha nature
Other than the birds,
Who watches over you?
Lordly peaks, your neighbors.
White head held pillowed on a stone.
Grey robe ragged, but not soiled
Chestnuts pile up on your path.
Monkeys circle where you sit.
If you ever set up another zendo,
I swear I’ll be the one who
sweeps the floors.
when you are deluded and full of doubt
When you are deluded
and full of doubt, even a thousand
books of scripture are still not enough.
When you have realized understanding,
even one word is already too much.
Zen is communicated personally,
through mental recognition.
It is not handed on directly
by written words.
you are not so soft after all
Depending
on where you look,
what you touch, you are changing
all the time. The carbon inside you, accounting
for about 18 percent of your being, could have existed in any
number of creatures or natural disasters before finding
you. That particular atom residing somewhere
above your left eyebrow? It could well have
been a smooth, riverbed pebble
before deciding to call
you home.
You see,
you are not so soft after
all; you are rock and wave and
the peeling bark of trees, you are ladybirds
and the smell of a garden after the rain.
When you put your best foot forward,
you are taking the north side
of a mountain with
you.
nothing to be born, nothing to perish
All Buddhas preach emptiness.
Why? Because they wish to crush the concrete ideas
of the students. If a student even clings to an idea of emptiness,
he betrays all Buddhas. One clings to life although there is nothing to be
called life; another clings to death although there is nothing to be
called death. In reality there is nothing to be born,
consequently, there is nothing
to perish.