tao leaves nothing undone

Those who get a taste for the sayings of people of old make extraordinary sayings and wonderful statements into a nest…Those who get a taste for a state of quiescent silence without words or speech make a nest of closing the eyes and sitting in a ghost cave in a mountain of darkness on the other side of the prehistoric Buddhas. Those who get a taste for the goings-on of daily activities make a nest of raising their eyebrows, blinking their eyes, and alerting attention…

If you do not have a strong will and discipline to step back and realize your error, you will imagine what you esteem to be extraordinary, imagine it to be mysterious and marvelous, imagine it to be peace and security, imagine it to be ultimate, imagine it to be liberation.

Those who entertain such imaginations could not be helped even if the Buddha appeared in the world. In the teachings this is called the confusion of ignorance and benightedness. Why? because you are ignorant you cling to error and consider it right. Because you are benighted you remain plunged into what you esteem and cannot budge.

If you do not produce anything in your mind, and are not fixated on anything, then you have no object of esteem. When you have no object of esteem, you naturally have no greed and no dependence on things, independent in the midst of things, with bare-boned strength.

If you want such accord right now, it is not difficult; just be equanimous in mind, unaffected by anything. What is affectation? Formulating concepts of sentient beings, concepts of Buddha, concepts of the mundane, concepts of the transcendental, concepts of seeking detachment, concepts of seeking enlightened knowledge. Those are all called affectations.

Just concentrate intensely on the brink of arousal, and leap out in one jump — this mind will be clear, independently liberated. Then as soon as you sense this, turn upward, and you will spontaneously be lucid everywhere; it will be evident in everything.

When you manage to reach such a state, don’t keep taking note of it. If you keep taking note of it, then you’ll have an object of esteem.

Dahui

treasury of the eye of true teaching

without leaving wherever you are

steady devotion

Yongjia said,

“Without leaving wherever you are,

there is constant clarity.” No words come closer

to the truth than these. If you start seeking, then we know

that you are unable to see. Just cut off any duality between

“wherever you are” and “constant clarity,” and make

yourself peaceful and serene. Avoid concocting

intellectual understanding and seeking.

As soon as you seek, it is like

grasping at shadows.

Yuanwu

zen letters

🪷

onward through it all

bottomless yuanwu

Keep practicing even when

there seems no hope

of success.

Marcus Aurelius

the annotated marcus

a most essential shortcut

emily fikkert

If you want to attain Intimacy, the first thing is, don’t seek it. If you attain through seeking, you have already fallen into interpretive understanding.

This is especially true because this great treasury extends through all times, clearly evident, empty and bright. Since time without beginning it has been your own basic root: you depend on its power in all your actions.

You will only pass through to freedom when you cease and desist to the point that not even a single thought is born. Then you penetrate through without falling into sense and matter and without dwelling in conceptualizations and mental images.

When you absolutely transcend these, then the whole world does not hide it. Everywhere everything becomes its Great Function, and every single thing flows forth from your own breast. The ancients called this bringing out the family treasure. Once this is attained, it is attained forever. How could it ever be used up?

Just be wary that your investigation does not rest on a firm footing, and that you will not be able to penetrate through to realization. You must bravely cut off all entanglements, so there is not the slightest dependence or reliance. Relinquish your body and give up your life and directly accept the suchness that faces you; there is no other.

Then even if the thousand sages came forth it wouldn’t change you at all. Leaving it to the flow at all times, eating food and wearing clothes, you nurture the embryo of sagehood to maturity, not keeping to intellectual understanding. Isn’t this an especially excellent teaching and a most essential shortcut?

Yuanwu

zen letters

🪷