Guest guest Posted August 31, 2002 Report Share Posted August 31, 2002 Zen Poetry Selected Quotations My daily activities are not unusual, I'm just naturally in harmony with them. Grasping nothing, discarding nothing... Supernatural power and marvelous activity - Drawing water and carrying firewood. - Layman Pang-yun (740-808) The wind has settled, the blossoms have fallen; Birds sing, the mountains grow dark -- This is the wondrous power of Buddhism. - Ryokan, (1758-1831) Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf Translated by John Stevens The mind of the past is ungraspable; the mind of the future is ungraspable; the mind of the present is ungraspable. - Diamond Sutra Nothing in the cry of cicadas suggests they are about to die - Basho Unfettered at last, a traveling monk, I pass the old Zen barrier. Mine is a traceless stream-and-cloud life, Of these mountains, which shall be my home? - Manan (1591-1654) The Penguin Book of Zen Poetry Translated by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto My legacy - What will it be? Flowers in spring, The cuckoo in summer, And the crimson maples Of autumn ... - Ryokan (1758-1831) Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf, p.143 Translated by John Stevens Finally out of reach - No bondage, no dependency. How calm the ocean, Towering the void. - Tessho's death poem How boundless the cleared sky of Samadhi! How transparent the perfect moonlight of the Fourfold Wisdom! At this moment what more need we seek? As the Truth eternally reveals itself, This very place is the Lotus Land of Purity, This very body is the Body of the Buddha. - Song of Meditation, Hakuin Ekaku Zenji Striving to leave the wilderness You become part of what's wild. Striving to cease grasping Is, itself, grasping. So how do you gain control and get beyond desire? Open those eyes... the ones that were born in your own skull. ~ Hsu Yun It is too clear and so it is hard to see. A dunce once searched for a fire with a lighted lantern. Had he known what fire was, He could have cooked his rice much sooner. - Joshu Washes the Bowl, The Gateless Gate #7 Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, p. 176 Translated by Paul Reps and Nyogen Senzaki To what shall I compare this life of ours? Even before I can say it is like a lightning flash or a dewdrop it is no more. - Sengai This is an exquisite truth: Saints and ordinary folks are the same from the start. Inquiring about a difference Is like asking to borrow string when you've got a good strong rope. Every Dharma is known in the heart. After a rain, the mountain colors intensify. Once you become familiar with the design of fate's illusions Your ink-well will contain all of life and death. ~ Hsu Yun You've traveled up ten thousand steps in search of the Dharma. So many long days in the archives, copying, copying. The gravity of the Tang and the profundity of the Sung make heavy baggage. Here! I've picked you a bunch of wildflowers. Their meaning is the same but they're much easier to carry. ~Hsu Yun Loving old priceless things, I've scorned those seeking Truth outside themselves: Here, on the tip of the nose. - Layman Makusho In this way and that I have tried to save the old pail Since the bamboo strip was weakening and about to break Until at last the bottom fell out. No more water in the pail! No more moon in the water! - Chiyono's enlightenment poem, Zen Flesh, Zen Bones, 1957, p. 31 Translated by Paul Reps and Nyogen Zenzaki This is what should be done By one who is skilled in goodness, And who knows the path of peace: Let them be able and upright, Straightforward and gentle in speech. Humble and not conceited, Contented and easily satisfied. Unburdened with duties and frugal in their ways. Peaceful and calm, and wise and skillful, Not proud and demanding in nature. Let them not do the slightest thing That the wise would later reprove. - The Buddha's Words on Kindness (Metta Sutta) Emptiness in Full Bloom: Flowers in the Sky (Kuge) Before I had studied Zen for thirty years, I saw mountains as mountains, and waters as waters. When I arrived at a more intimate knowledge, I came to the point where I saw that mountains are not mountains, and waters are not waters. But now that I have got its very substance I am at rest. For it's just that I see mountains once again as mountains, and waters once again as waters. - Ching-yuan Shariputra, Form does not differ from emptiness; Emptiness does not differ from form. Form itself is emptiness; Emptiness itself is form. So too are feeling, cognition, formation, and consciousness. - Heart Sutra As flowing waters disappear into the mist We lose all track of their passage. Every heart is its own Buddha. Ease off ... become immortal. Wake up! The world's a mote of dust. Behold heaven's round mirror. Turn loose! Slip past shape and shadow, Sit side by side with nothing, save Tao. - Shih-shu, 1703 Stones and Trees; The Poetry of Shih-Shu Translation by James H. Sanford The Clouds Should Know Me By Now, 1998, p. 153 Everything just as it is, as it is, as is. Flowers in bloom. Nothing to add. - Robert Aitken, Roshi, As it Is Fathomed at last! Ocean's dried. Void burst. Without an obstacle in sight, It's everywhere! - Joho, 12th Century Zen Poems of China and Japan, 1973, p. 15 Translated by Lucien Stryk, Takashi Ikemoto and Taigan Takayama Enlightenment is basically not a tree, And the clear mirror is not a stand. Fundamentally there is not a single thing - Where can dust collect. - ~ Hui Neng, Sixth Zen Patriarch in China, 638-713 Transmission of Light, Thomas Cleary, p. 140 There I was, hunched over office desk, Mind an unruffled pool. A thunderbolt! My middle eye Shot wide, revealing - my ordinary self. - Layman Seiken, 11th Century Zen Poems of China and Japan, 1973, p. 14 Translated by Lucien Stryk, Takashi Ikemoto and Taigan Takayama An explosive shout cracks the great empty sky. Immediately clear self-understanding. Swallow up buddhas and ancestors of the past. Without following others, realize complete penetration. - Dogen, 1200 - 1253 Moon in a Dewdrop, p, 218 Translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi Two come about because of One, but don't cling to the One either! So long as the mind does not stir, the ten thousand things stay blameless; no blame, no phenomena, no stirring, no mind. The viewer disappears along with the scene, the scene follows the viewer into oblivion, for scene becomes scene only through the viewer, viewer becomes viewer because of the scene. - Seng-ts'an, 600 Hsin-Hsin-Ming: Inscription on Trust in the Mind Translated by Burton Watson Found in Entering the Stream, p. 149 Edited by Samuel Bercholz and Sherab Chodzin Kohn Shame on you Shakyamuni for setting the precedent of leaving home. Did you think it was not there-- in your wife's lovely face in your baby's laughter? Did you think you had to go elsewhere to find it? - Judyth Collin The Layman's Lament >From What Book, 1998, p. 52 Edited by Gary Gach Direct your eye right inward, and you'll find A thousand regions of your mind Yet undiscovered. Travel them and be Expert in home-cosmography. - Henry David Thoreau Walden Step out onto the Planet. Draw a circle a hundred feet round Inside the circle are 300 things nobody understands, and maybe nobody's ever seen. How many can you find? - Lew Welch >From What Book, 1998, p. 124 Edited by Gary Gach The Three Thousand Worlds that step forward with the light snow, and the light snow that falls in those Three Thousand Worlds. - Ryokan, 1758-1851 Ryokan: Zen Monk - Poet of Japan, 1977, p. 103 Translated by Burton Watson Gone, and a million things leave no trace Loosed, and it flows through the galaxies A fountain of light, into the very mind-- Not a thing, and yet it appears before me: Now I know the pearl of the Buddha-nature Know its use: a boundless perfect sphere. - Han-Shan, circa 640 The Englightened Heart, edited by Stephen Mitchell, p. 30 Manjusri, a bodhisattva should regard all living beings as a wise man Regards the reflection of the moon in water, As magicians regard men created by magic. As being like a face in a mirror, like the water of a mirage; like the sound of an echo; like a mass of clouds in the sky; like the appearance and disappearance of a bubble of water; like the core of a plantain tree; like a flash of lightning; like the appearance of matter in an immaterial realm; like a sprout from a rotten seed; like tortoise-hair coat; like the fun of games for one who wishes to die... - Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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