The words of Old Tcheng

[Guest guest]

Dear fellow devotees,

I came across the article " the words of old Tcheng" in Mountain path

Jayanti isue of 1991. I thought all devotees would appreciate and

benefit from his words. I am posting the same in instalments. the

first one follows;

 

Old Tcheng said:

 

To see the primordial spirit is to see it whether there are thoughts

are not, whether one is immobile or active, whether one is speaking

like I am before you, or whether one is silent, whether one is an

emperor, a monk, or some one with neither hearth nor home. What does

it really matter?

 

What difference is there between the Buddha and the illiterate rustic

monk who only knows how to split wood but who sees the primordial

spirit? There is not one particular primordial spirit for Bodhidharma

and another for old Tcheng or for each of you. The primordial spirit

is the primordial spirit. Nothing else can be said about it. Even

that is too much already. What others have said about the primordial

spirit and what I am saying can only be of use to encourage you to

search directly yourselves, without having recourse to any authority

and without any tricks. Every thing else will only blur your sight

and divert you from the one and only inquiry that should possess you

entirely, wherever you are and whatever you do: meditating, sweeping

the court or answering the call of nature. But when I see what you do

to the words of the patriarchs and my own, better that the patriarchs

and I had been drowned at birth.

 

Baldheads, you are afflicted with a mortal disease.

* * * (To be continued)

Jai Sri Ramana

Ramana Sarma