A Place to Start

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A Place to Start

If beginners studying Zen fear they have as yet no place to start

and no direction, even so, there's nothing else to say but that you

each have an original face, which you have never recognized.

This original face is one with all buddhas: twenty-four hours a day,

as you are speaking, silent, active, quiet, walking, standing,

sitting, and lying down, all of this is due to its empowerment.

Just recognize this inwardly, and there you have a place to start;

there you have direction.

~~~ Wei-tse (d.1348)

The Subtle Path

The subtle path of buddhas and Zen masters is not an irrational

creation of knotty problems, nor is it eccentricity or wierdery. And

it is not something that is very lofty and hard to practice: it is just

what you presently use all the time in your everyday activities. If

we have to give it a name, we might call it the natural real Buddha

in your own nature, or the master within your own self.

In everyday terms, at all times and in all places, you see and hear

with Shakyamuni Buddha's eyes and ears, you speak and breathe

with Zen founder Bodhidharma's tongue and nose. In ultimate terms,

the individual lives of all the buddhas and Zen masters of the ten

directions are all in your grip - whether to gather them together

or let them disperse is all up to you.

~~~ Wei-tse

>From Teachings of Zen, translated by Thomas Cleary