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translation by Robert Aitken Roshi from Diamond Sangha Sutra Book
I have continued my zazen for many eons;
I do not say this to confuse you.
I raise the Dharma-banner and set forth our teaching;
It is the clear doctrine of the Buddha
Which I found with my teacher, Hui Neng,
Nyogen’s Comment from Buddhism and Zen -Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth Strout McCandless
When Yoka speaks of having studied for many, many lives, he is not referring to innumerable incarnations. When he attained his Zen, he lost his delusions to become one with the vast ocean of wisdom whose waves of Buddhas and patriarchs were also his. The brilliancy of Mahaprajna illumines all beings; Buddhas and patriarchs reflect this brilliance one to the other.
This dog is still slacking. Lost in delusion. Surfing the vast ocean. Catching the occasional buddha-wave.
Those who speculate, reading scriptures or clinging to creeds and dogmas, wander far from realization.
Ancestor Huang Po was even more abrupt on this point, “All of you people are gobblers of dregs, if you go on traveling around this way, where will you have Today?”
This ol’ dog just says, “Gobble, gobble.”
translation by Robert Aitken Roshi from Diamond Sangha Sutra Book
If someone asks, what is your sect
And how do you understand it?
I reply, the power of tremendous prajna.
People say it is positive;
People say it is negative;
But they do not know.
A smooth road, a rough road
Even heaven cannot imagine.
Nyogen’s Translation and Comment from Buddhism and Zen -Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth Strout McCandless
When a person asks me what branch of Buddhism I studied,
I tell him about Mahaprajna, the root of the teaching.
Without Mahaprajna, though you know right and wrong,
You are beyond the truth. With the root of the teaching,
Wherever you go it is the land of truth.
Buddhism is the teaching of self-enlightenment. No God or gods will help you to realize the truth. The power of realization within you is called Mahaprajna, meaning great wisdom. This is the root of the teaching, the source of all streams of Buddhistic thought. Those who speculate, reading scriptures or clinging to creeds and dogmas, wander far from realization. Ethical deeds and kind actions may be praised, but they are without real value until they spring from Mahaprajna.
translation by Robert Aitken Roshi from Diamond Sangha Sutra Book
One complete nature passes to all natures;
Right here it is eternally full and serene,
If you search elsewhere, you cannot see it.
You cannot grasp it, you cannot reject it;
In the midst of not gaining,
In that condition you gain it.
It speaks in silence,In speech you hear its silence.
The great way has opened and there are no obstacles.
Nyogen’s Translation and Comment from Buddhism and Zen -Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth Strout McCandless
When you begin to study Zen, you aim to attain realization. Your motive is good in so far as motive is concerned, but in your meditation you should aim at nothing. You may aim at realization to encourage yourself when you are not meditating, but beware of clinging entanglements. Encouragement is one thing, meditation is another. Do not mix them up. Carry your meditation as the eternal present, and saturate your everyday life with it.
Dogen said Practice is Realization. Practice-Realization. Realization-Practice. Kinda shrill. Seems that it’s more like some slippery prize. Squeeze and it slips away. Let go of grasping for the prize. Nothing special. Ordinary. And it rests in the palm of your hand.
translation by Robert Aitken Roshi from Diamond Sangha Sutra Book
High in the Himalayas, only fei-ni grass grows.
Here cows produce pure and delicious milk,
And this food I continually enjoy.
One complete nature passes to all natures;
One universal Dharma encloses all Dharmas.One moon is reflected in many waters;
All the water-moons are from the one moon.
The Dharma-body of all Buddhas has entered my own nature,
And my nature becomes one with the Tathagata.One level completely contains all levels;
It is not matter, mind nor activity.
In an instant eighty-thousand teachings are fulfilled;
In a twinkling the evil of eons is destroyed.All categories are no category;
What relation have have these to my insight?
Beyond praise, beyond blame,
Like space itself it has no bounds.
Nyogen’s Translation and Comment from Buddhism and Zen -Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth Strout McCandless
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” All things return to one, and one operates in all things. When you pass one koan, you have passed all koans. It is your own fault if you are entangled by the next one. Realization has no color, no form, no psychological movement, and no action of dualistic tendency.
After passing all koans in the curriculum, comes the appreciation that this is only the start. Like the 36th chamber of the Shoalin the world is the final test. In the last Ox Herding picture you return to the market with treats in hand. Nailing it, Ikkyu said the only koan that matters is you.
translation by Robert Aitken Roshi from Diamond Sangha Sutra Book
Students of vigorous will hold the sword of wisdom;
The prajna edge is a diamond flame.
It not only cuts off useless knowledge,
But also exterminates delusions.They roar with Dharma-thunder;
They strike the Dharma-drum;
They spread clouds of love, and pour ambrosial rain.
Their giant footsteps nourish limitless beings;
Sravaka, Pratyeka, Bodhisattva–all are enlightened;
Five kinds of human nature all are emancipated.
Nyogen’s Translation and Comment from Buddhism and Zen -Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth Strout McCandless
The true student of Zen carries the sword of Prajna (the wisdom of emancipation),
The blade is so sharp that one feels the searing flame around.
It cuts away for delusions of non-Buddhist thought as well as the haughty pride of heavenly devils.Sometimes the student preaches like a thunderstorm;
Sometimes, he pours the gentle rain of loving kindness.
He walks like the king of elephants, yet always loves other beings.
He teaches the five students of different nature, leading them to Buddhahood, although they come to see him through three different gates.“Heavenly devils” or those who call themselves Zen masters or those who wear the robes of various religious sects, and think that by doing so they have been equally invested with some divine right to direct the lives of others. Pride is one the most subtle and insidious evils of all, appearing in many forms. Only the student who is accomplished Prajna a has any right to lead others.
The true student of Zen guides each [of the five students] according to his understanding until he attains enlightenment.
Pratyeka is someone who has awakened due to insight into the twelve nidanas (links of conditioned or interdependent arising). Sravaka is someone who has attained by listening to the teachings in gaining insight into the Four Noble Truths. Bodhisattva is someone who embodies the six paramitas. Senzaki’s “five students” are those that are potential Sravakas, Pratyeka and Bohisattvas, the uncertain and those that cannot be categorized.
Humans beyond category?
Why Log Truck Drivers Rise Earlier Then Students of Zen
In the high seat, before-dawn dark,
Polished hubs gleam
And the shiny diesel stack
Warms and flutters
Up the Tyler Road grade
To the logging on Poorman Creek.
Thirty miles of dust.
There is no other life.
Turtle Island by Gary Snyder
translation by Robert Aitken Roshi from Diamond Sangha Sutra Book
They miss the Dharma-treasure;
They lose accumulated power;
And this disaster follows directly upon dualistic thinking.
So Zen is the complete realization of mind,
The complete cutting off of delusion,
The power of wise vision penetrating directly to the unborn.
Nyogen’s Translation and Comment from Buddhism and Zen -Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth Strout McCandless
People miss the spiritual treasure and lose merit
Because they depend on dualistic thinking
And neglect the essence of mind.
To pass through the gate of Zen,
One must correct this error.
Then one can attain the wisdom
To enter the palace of Nivana.Buddhists often refer to the “seven treasures” (paramitas), which are faith, perseverance, listening, humility, precepts, self surrender, and meditation and wisdom. Meditation and wisdom are considered as one, inner cultivation and outer illumination. To acquire these seven treasures one must first of all see Mind-Essence clearly, just as Aladdin had first to find the lamp before he could produce other wonders.
Wobaku, a Chinese Zen master, once said, “Buddhas and sentient beings both grow out of One Mind, and there is no reality other than this Mind-Only because we seek it outwardly in a world of form, the more we seek, the farther away it moves from us. To make Buddha seek after himself, or to make Mind take hold of itself, this is impossible to the end of eternity. We do not realize that as soon as our thoughts cease and all attempts at forming ideas are forgotten, the Buddha is revealed before us.”
translation by Robert Aitken Roshi from Diamond Sangha Sutra Book
Holding truth and rejecting delusion
These are but skillful lies.
Students who do zazen by such lies
Love thievery in their own children
Nyogen’s Translation and Comment from Buddhism and Zen -Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth Strout McCandless
One who rejects delusions to search for truth,
May achieve skill in discrimination,
But such a student will never reach enlightenment
Because they mistake the enemy for their own child.Some Christians admire an angel but hate a devil. Some Confucians pine for the ancient kingdom but complain of the present government. All of them attempt to take hold of the true by abandoning the false. They struggle endlessly, but never attain true peacefulness.
Zen students who try to reach truth by rejecting delusions are making the same mistake. Learn silence and work on constantly in silence, to see clearly what the mind is.
translation by Robert Aitken Roshi from Diamond Sangha Sutra Book
To live in nothingness is to ignore cause and effect;
This chaos leads only to disaster.
The one who clings to vacancy, rejecting the world of things,
Escapes from drowning but leaps into fire.
Nyogen’s Translation and Comment from Buddhism and Zen -Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth Strout McCandless
When a Zen student sees emptiness one-sidedly,
They are likely to ignore the law of causation,
Then live aimlessly with impure thoughts and wrong actions.
This idea is morbid as they deny the existence of anything,
But admit an entity of emptiness.
To escape drowning, they have thrown themselves into the fire.To “see emptiness one sidedly” is to give another name to relativity, phenomenality or nothingness. When Buddhism denies the existence of anything, this of course includes the existence of emptiness. There is order; there is the law of causation. The use of the word “emptiness” implies that which cannot be spoken.
translation by Robert Aitken Roshi from Diamond Sangha Sutra Book
The mind-mirror is clear, so there are no obstacles.
Its brilliance illuminates the universe
To the depths and in every grain of sand.
Multitudinous things of the cosmos
Are all reflected in the mind,
And this full clarity is beyond inner and outer.
Nyogen’s Comment from Buddhism and Zen -Nyogen Senzaki and Ruth Strout McCandless
Here is another portion of Shin-jin-mei to interpret the preceding stanza:
Zen transcends time and space. Ten thousand years are nothing but a thought after all. What you have seen is what you had in the whole world. If your thought transcends time and space, you will know that the smallest thing is large and the largest thing is small, that being is non-being and non-being is being. Without such experience you will hesitate to do anything. If you can realize that one is many, and many are one, your Zen will be completed.
Faith and Mind-Essence are not separate from each other. You will see only the ‘not two.’ The ‘not two’ is the faith. The ‘not two is the Mind-Essence. There is no other way but silence to express it properly. This silence is not the past. This silence is not the present. This silence is not the future.
Rendering Shin-jin-mei (ch. Hsin Hsin Ming) into English is slippery business. Even the title has been a challenge. Sacred Texts gives 18 different ways translators have cast the title and several versions of the stanzas.
Zen Stains: drinkin' & headed home 