Spring has its hundred flowers,
Autumn its moon.
Summer has its cooling breezes,
Winter its snow.
If you allow no idle concerns
To weigh on your heart,
Your whole life will be one
Perennial good season.
- Wu-men Huai-kai
A bird in a secluded grove sings like a flute.
Willows sway gracefully with their golden threads.
The mountain valley grows the quieter as the clouds return.
A breeze brings along the fragrance of the apricot flowers.
For a whole day I have sat here encompassed by peace,
Till my mind is cleansed in and out of all cares and idle thoughts.
I wish to tell you how I feel, but words fail me.
If you come to this grove, we can compare notes.
- Ch'an master Fa-yen
The wind traverses the vast sky,
clouds emerge from the mountains;
Feelings of enlightenment and things of the world
are of no concern at all.
- Zen Master Keizan Jõkin
Drinking tea, eating rice,
I pass my time as it comes;
Looking down at the stream, looking up at the mountains,
How serene and relaxed I feel indeed!
- Ch'an master Nan-ch'üan P'u-yüan
At Nantai I sit quietly with an incense burning,
One day of rapture, all things are forgotten,
Not that mind is stopped and thoughts are put away,
But that there is really nothing to disturb my serenity.
- Nan-t'ai
Old P'ang requires nothing in the world:
All is empty with him, even a seat he has not,
For absolute Emptiness reigns in his household;
How empty indeed it is with no treasures!
When the sun is risen, he walks through Emptiness,
When the sun sets, he sleeps in Emptiness;
Sitting in Emptiness he sings his empty songs,
And his empty songs reverberate through Emptiness:
Be not surprised at Emptiness so thoroughly empty,
For Emptiness is the seat of all the Buddhas;
And Emptiness is not understood by the men of the world,
But Emptiness is the real treasure:
If you say there's no Emptiness,
You commit grave offence against the Buddhas.
- P'ang
Be detached, be detached!
Be thoroughly detached!
What then?
The pine is green,
And white is the snow.
- Author Unknown
Others are revolted, I am unmoved.
Gripped by desires, I am unmoved.
Hearing the wisdom of sages, I am unmoved.
I move only in my own way.
- Chi Kung
Old Pan Kou knows nothing about time
and nothing about space as well.
His life is self-natured and self-sufficient.
He needs to ask for nothing outside of his own being.
The genesis of the world is the exercise of his mind.
When his mind starts to think, the world starts to move.
The world has never been made by any special design.
Neither has an end ever been put to it.
- The Song of Pan Kou
To learn Buddha Dharma is to learn the self.
To learn the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to become one with
endless dimension, Universal Mind.
- Dogen
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