The more you talk and think about it,
The further astray you wander from the truth.
Stop talking and thinking,
And there is nothing you will not be able to know.
To return to the root is to find the meaning,
But to pursue appearances is to miss the source.
At the moment of inner enlightenment
There is a going beyond appearance and emptiness.
- Seng Ts'an (d. 606 )
Sitting on top of a boulder
The gorge stream icy cold
Quiet fun holds a special charm
Fogged-in on deserted cliffs
A fine place to rest
The sun leans and tree shadows sprawl
While I view the ground of my mind
A lotus comes out of the mud.
- Han-shan
With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of
joy, we see into the life of things - William Wordsworth
The narrower the mind, the broader the statement - Ted Cook
Don't seek fame or fortune,
Glory or prosperity.
Just pass this life as is,
According to circumstances.
When the breath is gone,
Who is in charge?
After the death of the body,
There is only an empty name.
When your clothes are worn,
Repair them over and over;
When you have no food,
Work to provide.
How long can a phantomlike body last?
Would you increase your ignorance
For the sake of its idle concerns?
- Tung-shan
- Ryokan (1758-1831)
Consciousness and perception range from shallow to deep. As for
profound perceptions, they are pure through the ages. They are the
basis to influence and cultivate mind from the first generation of the
aspiration for enlightenment until the achievement of buddhahood
without falling back.
- Records of the Lanka
Nothing in this world can
take the place of persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common
than unsuccessful people with talent.
Genius will not; unrewarded genius
is almost a proverb.
Education will not;
the world is full of educated derelicts.
Persistence and determination
alone are omnipotent.
- Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)
I climb the road to Cold Mountain,
The road to Cold Mountain that never ends.
The valleys are long and strewn with stones;
The streams broad and banked with thick grass.
Moss is slippery, though no rain has fallen;
Pines sigh, but it isn't the wind.
Who can break from the snares of the world
And sit with me among the white clouds?
- Han-shan
Look into the sphere of birthless mind!
Let dawn the enjoyment of ceaseless play!
When free of hope and fear, that's the result.
Why speak of birth and death?
Come to the natural, unmodified state!
- Milarepa
I said I shall tell the tale of my heart as best as I can;
Caught in the storm of my tears, with a bleeding heart,
I failed to do that!
I tried to relate to event in broken, muted words;
The cup of my thoughts was so fragile, that I fell into pieces like
shattered glass.
Many ships were wrecked in this storm;
What is my little helpless boat in comparison?
The waves destroyed my ship, neither good remained nor bad;
Free from myself, I tied my body to a raft.
Now, I am neither up nor down-no this is not a fair description;
I am up on a wave one instant, and down under another the next.
I am not aware of my existence, I know only this:
When I am, I am not, and when I am not, I am!
(Divan 1419:1-6)
Rainer Maria Rilke: "For one human being to love another is the most
difficult task of all. It's the work for which all other work is mere
preparation."
Teilhard de Chardin: "Someday after we have mastered the winds, the
waves, and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love; and
then for a second time in the history of the world, human beings will
have discovered fire."
Leo Tolstoy: "Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I
understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only
because I love."
Blaise Pascal: "If you do not love too much, you do not love enough."
Emily Dickinson: "Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself."
To know that the one good is balance and yet not to reach balance, to
know all phenomena are mind and yet not to understand mind; this is
confusion. To know the matter of birth and death is serious and yet
not to realize birthlessness, to know impermanence is swift and yet
not to realize there is fundamentally no speed; this is confusion.
- Records of the Lanka
