For commentary, info and to add your own comments, click here or on the discussion tab above.
Introduction
Page One ... Page Two ...
Page Three ... Without Commentary ... Cleary Translation ... Shinjin-No-Mei D.T.Suzuki
A translation known as Faith Mind by Clark is a W.I.P.
as is the original Chinese
- HsinHsinMing
- HsinHsinMing
- (commentary R.H.Blyth)
- THE MORE TALKING AND THINKING,
- THE FARTHER FROM THE TRUTH.
- Haiku are the briefest kind of poetry consonant with the
- possession of form and rhythm. By the reduction of poetical
- expression to seventeen syllables we narrow the circle around
- that invisible, unwritable central poetic life until no mistake
- is possible, no discolouration of the object is left, all is
- transparent and as though wordless. Yungchia says:
- When asked, "What is your religion?"
- I answer, "The Power of the Makahannya". [The Great Wisdom]
- Sometimes affirming things, sometimes denying them,
- It is beyond the wisdom of man.
- Sometimes with common sense, sometimes against it,
- Heaven cannot make head or tail of it.
- CUTTING OFF ALL SPEECH, ALL THOUGHT,
- THERE IS NOWHERE THAT YOU CANNOT GO.
- This does not mean that there is to be no speech, no words, but
- that there is to be speech that is non-speaking, silence that is
- expressive; thought that is ego-less, mindlessness through which
- the Mind is flowing. This mindless, speechless, thinking and
- talking state is one in which we realize the impermanence of all
- things. But this "realize", does not mean an intellectual
- comprehension, but a "making real" in ourselves as
- actual-potential state. It is not that all things are impermanent
- and that we must perceive this fact, but that our "seeing" the
- change that a thing is, and the change that is seen are one
- activity, neither cause nor effect, neither hen nor egg.
- "There is nowhere that you cannot go", in other words, you are
- the Buddha, -- not *a* Buddha, but *the* Buddha, beyond all time
- and space, eternal and infinite, yet here and now. You have all
- because you have nothing; having no desires, they are all
- fulfilled, yet you own property; you hope for this and that, talk
- and think, plan and day-dream.
- RETURNING TO THE ROOT, WE GET THE ESSENCE;
- FOLLOWING AFTER APPEARANCES, WE LOSE THE SPIRIT.
- What is the "root" of the universe? Some say man, some say God.
- It is often convenient to have two names for one thing:
- spiritual, material; human, divine; freewill, determinism;
- relative, absolute. But if we think of the essence of things as
- the root, and the things themselves as branches and leaves, we
- are allowing these "thoughts" and "words", spoken of in the
- previous verse, to divide once more what is a living unity into a
- duality that is dead as such. For whether we look at things in
- their multifariousness, their variety and differences, or at the
- common elements, the "Life-force", the principles of Science, we
- are still far from the root, which is not either, not both, not a
- thing at all, -- yet it is not nothing. Buddhists say the mind,
- is the root of things -- but it is not something inside us.
- Christians say it is God, -- but it is not something outside us.
- But to know, to *realize*, the inside and outside as one, that my
- profit is your profit, that your loss is my loss, to make this
- fact, this dead matter-of-fact into a living, yea-saying Fact, --
- this is our own and our only problem. When this is solved, in out
- thinking and speaking, all is solved. When it is not solved,
- every thought is twisted, every word is sophisticated. Yungchia
- uses the same metaphor of root and leaves in the following verse:
- Cutting off the root (of life and death) directly,
- This is the mark of Buddhahood;
- If you go on plucking leaves (of creeds) and seeking branches
- (of abstract principles),
- I can do nothing for you.
- IF FOR ONLY A MOMENT WE SEE WITHIN,
- WE HAVE SURPASSED THE EMPTINESS OF THINGS.
- Moments of vision, provided that we are watchful for and
- unforgetful of them, coming and going as they do, like a breath
- of air, enable us to go beyond the transitoriness, the emptiness,
- the unreality of things, -- into what? Our going is to nowhere,
- our going is staying here. It is the timeless and spaceless that
- cannot exist except in time and space. What happiness to have so
- many of these moments, for them to run in a stream through our
- lives! Nietzsche, Mozart, Spinoza, Marcus Aurelius, Basho, --
- this is what these names mean to us, the painful-happiness of
- these moments of seeing within.
- CHANGES GO ON IN THIS EMPTINESS
- ALL BECAUSE OF OUR IGNORANCE.
- Once we realize that there is no such thing as reality, nothing
- can appear as real or unreal. All things are empty in their
- self-nature, and when we realize that nothing is unreal, we are
- at home in every place; every moment of time, whether past or
- present, is now. In our yearning for what is to come, in our
- regrets for what is past, time lives in eternity. Our thoughts
- wander through infinite space, which is thus in this point of
- feeling matter.
- DO NOT SEEK FOR THE TRUTH,
- ONLY STOP HAVING AN OPINION.
- The drowning man searches for water. A more homely and apt
- illustration is a man looking for the spectacles that are on his
- nose. Confucius says, "making an axe looking for the one your are
- using". There is no such thing as "the Truth". The nearest
- approach to anything like it is our state of mind when we desist
- form the search for it, and live our life. This is what the
- "Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment" means when it says:
- Positive views are all perverted views;
- All no-opinions are true opinions.
- And Yungchia says also explicitly,
- Do not seek after the truth,
- Do not cut off delusions.
- DO NOT REMAIN IN THE RELATIVE VIEW OF THINGS;
- RELIGIOUSLY AVOID FOLLOWING IT.
- In every way the world is double, good and bad, profit and loss,
- here and there. But from another point of view, "There is nothing
- good or bad but our thinking makes it so". We are to stop this
- "thinking", this "having an opinion", this "judging". Yet if you
- say, this is the right view, this is the wring, this the
- relative, this is the absolute, we are still "following" it.
- Truth is attained only when we realize that there is nothing to
- attain to. Eternity has its fulness of perfection in us only when
- we are engrossed in the temporal and imperfect.
- IF THERE IS THE SLIGHTEST TRACE OF THIS AND THAT,
- THE MIND IS LOST IN THE MAZE OF COMPLEXITY.
- The Middle Way is indeed the difficult path to tread, a
- razor-edge from which we fall into the common errors of mankind.
- When we compare the Chinese above with the Hebrew:
- Thou shalt worship no other God; for the Lord, whose name is
- jealous, is a jealous God.
- We cannot but be struck by the variety of expressions of an
- identical, inexpressible truth. There is here a variety in which
- the Mind is *not* lost; this *is* that, however well disguised.
- DUALITY ARISES FROM UNITY;
- BUT DO NOT BE ATTACHED TO THIS UNITY.
- It is the One that unites the Two; without It, the Buddha-nature,
- the Void, the Mind, this and that could not exist. But do not
- despise this and that and yearn after the Ground of Existence.
- Things and circumstances are in themselves neutral, not
- meaningless, but *not* coloured intrinsically with the "opinion"
- we have of them.
- When we clap our hands,
- The maid serves tea,
- Birds fly up,
- Fish draw near, --
- At the pond in Sarusawa.
- The clapping of the hands is It. The sound as interpreted by the
- maid-servant, by the bird, by the fish, is only half of It. But
- without halves there is no whole, just as without whole there are
- no halves. As we endeavour to release ourselves from phenomena,
- the relative world, we became attached to something even more
- non-existent, the thing in itself, the noumenon, and thus also it
- is said:
- Holding to the One in not Truth.
- WHEN THE MIND IS ONE, AND NOTHING HAPPENS,
- EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS UNBLAMEABLE.
- "Nothing happens" means our realizing that nothing increases or
- decreases, things are as they are. This is "realized" when the
- mind is undivided, when in my own person you and I, he and I are
- different names of one thing, that is nevertheless two things.
- When nothing in the world is "blamed" as itself and nothing else,
- or everything, when, that is, nature has done its part and we do
- ours, when we do not upbraid circumstances or indulge in
- self-reproach, the mind is the mind and nothing untoward can
- occur. Chesterton rightly says,
- An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly understood. An
- inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.
- ("On Running After One's Hat")
- Things are unblameable, unpraiseable as they flow from change to change:
- Whatever arises from the nature of the whole, and tends towards
- its well-being, is good also for every part of that nature. But
- the well-being of the universe depends on change, not only of the
- elementary, nut also of the compound.
- (Marcus Aurelius)
- IN THINGS ARE UNBLAMED THEY CEASE TO EXIST;
- IF NOTHING HAPPENS, THERE IS NO MIND.
- When we neither censure or praise anything, all things are devoid
- of censurable and praiseworthy qualities. When we do not judge
- things, things do not judge us. When things simply flow, every
- atom according to its own nature, according to Nature, according
- to its Buddha-nature, there is no mind as something separable
- from what is not mind. Yungchia says:
- Walking is Zen, sitting is Zen;
- Whether we speak or are silent, move or are still,
- It is unperturbed.
- WHEN THINGS CEASE TO EXIST, THE MIND FOLLOWS THEM;
- WHEN THE MIND VANISHES, THINGS ALSO FOLLOW IT.
- Subject and object, I and that, here and there, -- when one or
- the other (it does not matter which) ceases, both cease.
- According to our temperaments, we find it less difficult to
- become aware of the emptiness of the ego-concept or the emptiness
- of the thing-concept. It is the same difference that gives us the
- jiriki* and *tariki* sects, self-power and other-power. The
- first like refers to the former, and the second to the latter.
- Yungchia says:
- Trying to get rid of illusion, and seeking to grasp reality, --
- This giving up and keeping is mere sophistry and lies.
- In other words, seeking for the truth and avoiding
- discrimination, is itself discrimination. So long as we look for
- reality outside ourselves, or inside ourselves, so long will
- things refrain from following the (non-)ego into non-existence,
- and the (illusory) ego refrain from following things into their
- emptiness. Outside and inside are the same thing: what is
- outside?
- It is but a little blood, a few bones, a paltry net woven from
- nerves and veins. A little air, and this for ever changing; every
- minute of every hour we are gasping it forth and sucking it in
- again.
- What is inside?
- Sense-perceptions vague and shadowy... the things of the soul,
- dreams, vapours. (Marcus Aurelius)
- THINGS ARE THINGS BECAUSE OF THE MIND;
- THE MIND IS MIND BECAUSE OF THE THINGS.
- The aim of Zen, the aim of the poetical life, is to reach and
- remain in that undifferentiated state where subject and object
- are one, in which the object is perceived by simple
- introspection, the subject is the self-conscious object. Subject
- and object and to be realized as the two sides of one sheet of
- paper, that is one and yet is two. The one piece of paper cannot
- exist without the two sides, nor the two sides without the one
- sheet. This analogy fails to satisfy if taken in any other way
- but lightly and quickly, for to what should we compare the
- universe? How can anything be true parable of the Essence of
- Being?
- IF YOU WISH TO KNOW WHAT THESE TWO ARE,
- THEY ARE ORIGINALLY ONE EMPTINESS.
- The Emptiness is described in the following way: it is perfectly
- Harmonious, subject and object, Mind and Form are one. it is Pure
- and Undefiled, things are, just as they are, delivered from all
- stain of sin or imperfection. It is Unobstructed; all things are
- free, interpenetrative. That is to way it is age-less, non-moral,
- law-less. It is like light, containing all colours in it, but
- itself colourless. It is not a thing but contains all things;
- not a person but includes all minds; not beautiful or ugly but
- the essence of both.
- IN THIS VOID, BOTH (MIND AND THINGS) ARE ONE.
- ALL THE MYRIAD PHENOMENA CONTAINED IN BOTH.
- All mental phenomena are contained in things; all things are
- contained in the mind. But this "in" has an interpenetrative
- meaning; it is not the "in" of "inside" and "outside". An example
- of this interpenetration:
- The Rose of Sharon
- At the side of the road
- Was eaten by my horse.
- ~ Basho ~
- IF YOU DO NOT DISTINGUISH "REFINED" AND "COARSE",
- HOW CAN YOU BE *FOR* THIS AND *AGAINST* THAT?
- By "refined" and "coarse" is meant all the pairs of relatives
- under which we look at the world. Habit makes it seem a necessity
- that we should view the world so, since custom lies upon us "with
- the weight heavy as frost, and deep almost as life", but moments
- of vision, all moments profound enough to reach through to the
- Void, the Ground of Being, the Way, tell us that refined or
- coarse though things be, they are something which is neither,
- yet which is not neither. Thoreau gives us an example, all the
- truer because it is an unconscious one, of the way in which
- the rough and the smooth are the same:
- The landscape was clothed in a mild and quiet light, in
- which the woods and fences checkered and partitioned it
- with new regularity, and rough and uneven fields stretched
- away with lawn-like smoothness to the horizon, and the clouds,
- finely distinct and picturesque, seemed a fit drapery to hang
- over fairy-land.
- Thus all our preferences, from the weakest down to the strongest,
- must be seen as one-sided, not in the sense that there are other
- justifiable points of view, but that the thing is simply *not*
- what we suppose it to be, the quality ascribed to it is entirely
- absent. Then what is the thing if it is devoid of all qualities?
- It is devoid of absence of those qualities, and what is meant by
- this unpalatable conglomeration of negatives is that in some
- mysterious way the thing is alive, it exists with a palpitating
- stillness. A dark, invisible radiance comes from it, it moves
- from nowhere to nowhere, its future and its past ever present. It
- is the Way it travels; however small it fills all space; it is
- the Ground of Being and the Flowers of the Spirit that spring
- from it. It is the intimations of immortality and the certainty
- of annihilation.
- THE ACTIVITY OF THE GREAT WAY IS VAST;
- IT IS NEITHER EASY NOR DIFFICULT.
- The Way is called Great because there is nowhere else to walk
- but on it:
- I make myself a slave and yet must follow.
- There is nothing difficult or easy about it, for it includes all
- existence and all non-existence, all that is and all that can
- never be. We think it is easy and it is not; we suppose it to be
- difficult, and it is not. The ease or difficulty in entirely in
- our fancy. But this fancy also is included in the vastness of the
- activity of the Great Way and forms an essential part of it.
- Marcus Aurelius says:
- Forget not that all is opinion, and that opinion subject to thee.
- Then cast it out when thou wilt, and, like the mariner who has
- doubled the cape, thou wilt find thyself in a great calm, a
- smooth sea, and a tideless bay.
- SMALL VIEWS ARE FULL OF FOXY FEARS;
- THE FASTER THE SLOWER.
- Nothing can be achieved without courage. We fear to give up the
- bird in the hand for the two in the bush. This bird in the hand
- is not only life itself, but, for example, the Fatherhood of God.
- When we give up life, we pass beyond life and death. When we
- give up the Fatherhood of God, we lose also the feeling of
- dependence and servility. But we are still alive, God is still
- Our Father, -- but with a difference. Even with doubt there is
- small view and large view, the former an over-cautiousness,
- unadventurousness like that of the fox who will not venture on
- the ice until it is safe for an elephant; and the Great Doubt,
- which is the positive, active, thrusting doubt akin to curiosity
- but much stronger and deeper.
- Ordinary study is cumulative, but with Zen it is not so, because
- it belongs to the timeless. This is why it is said, "The faster
- the slower". The more you search, the farther away it gets, for
- it is an open secret. To love God and love one's fellow man, --
- there is nothing beyond this, nothing that requires explanation.
- Marcus Aurelius says:
- Life and death, fame and infamy, pain and pleasure, wealth and
- poverty fall to the lot of both just and unjust, because they are
- neither fair nor foul, neither good nor evil.
- WHEN WE ATTACH OURSELVES TO THIS (IDEA OF ENLIGHTENMENT),
- WE LOOSE OUR BALANCE; WE INFALLIBLY ENTER THE CROOKED WAY.
- Our experience, our deepest experience has taught us something;
- we wish to convey it to others. When they question its validity,
- we become angry, losing our mental serenity by holding so firmly
- to what is after all more intangible than snow-flakes or the
- rainbow. It is not merely calmness of mind that we have lost,
- however, but what is this and more, the Middle Way, the knowledge
- (and practice) that our profoundest interpretation of life also
- must be thrown overboard together with the sentimentality,
- cruelty, snobbery, and folly that make our lives a misery. The
- Crooked Way is not a morally distorted manner of life. It is
- composed of virtues as much as of vices, of ideals, religious
- dogmas, principles of freedom and justice, as much as of
- degradation and tyranny. The Crooked Way is over-grieving at
- inevitable sorrows, over-clinging to joys which must cease; it is
- regarding as permanent what is but transitory; always looking for
- the silver lining, desiring to be in the non-existent and
- impossible "Land beyond the morning star".
- WHEN WE ARE NOT ATTACHED TO ANYTHING, ALL THINGS ARE AS THEY ARE;
- WITH ACTIVITY THERE IS NO GOING, NO STAYING.
- Seize it and your hands are empty; drop it and they are full to
- overflowing. Ask, and ye shall not receive, is the iron law. But
- this non-asking is no indifference of blankness. It is like the
- "weakness" of women that overcomes the strongest man. It is like
- the force of gravity which pulls down the highest towers with not
- a single movement on its own part. Buds open in spring without
- straining; leaves fall in autumn without reluctance. The seasons
- come and go, years and centuries, -- but not the Activity, not
- the Great Way. There is no presence or absence, no increase or
- diminution with that.
- OBEYING OUR NATURE, WE ARE IN ACCORD WITH THE WAY.
- WANDERING FREELY, WITHOUT ANNOYANCE.
- Our own nature is not different from the nature of all things in
- which there is nothing unnatural. The fiends of Hell, the
- monsters of the deepest seas, the bacteria of our bosoms, the
- perversions of maniacs cannot surprise or distrust us. Living by
- Zen or without it, in perpetual fear and irritation; sadism and
- masochism; the destruction of life and beauty; the annihilation
- of the universe, -- none of these things can appal us. Our own
- faults and shortcomings, crimes and follies are a pleasure to
- us; the punishment they bring to us and the others are yet
- another confirmation of our insight into our true nature,
- overlaid as it is with illusions and superimposed habits that
- have become instincts, and usurp the authority of the Activity
- that yet works unceasingly within and without us.
- WHEN OUR THINKING IS TIED,
- IT IS DARK, SUBMERGED, WRONG.
- It is *dark*, so that we cannot distinguish the true nature of
- things; we see friends as enemies, strengthening trials as
- useless annoyances. We fail to perceive the so-called defects and
- errors of others as an aspect of their Buddha nature. It is
- submerged*; it does not float upon the waves of circumstances
- that can both drown or buoy us up. When all things work together
- for good because we love God, that is, we seek not to change that
- which is inevitable, the outside, but only the free, the inside,
- then we are as light as corks however low the billows descend,
- however high they mount aloft. It is *wrong*, because our nature
- is freedom. Perfect service, no task left undone or scamped, as
- best exemplified in a mother's unfailing, tender care, is right
- because not tied by duty or public opinion. When we look around
- and see odious people, a world of stupidity and spitefulness, the
- weather always too warm or too cold, all the elements conspiring
- to annoy us, death approaching nearer with ira prophetic twinges
- and dull throbs, this is to be tied, pressed down by dark,
- mournful waves of thought; Marcus Aurelius again:
- Thou art stricken in years; then suffer it not to remain a
- bond-servant; suffer is not to be puppet-like, hurried hither and
- thither by impulses that take no thought of thy fellow-man;
- suffer it not to murmur at destiny in the present or look askance
- at it in the future.
- IT IS FOOLISH TO IRRITATE YOUR MIND;
- WHY SHUN THIS AND BE FRIENDS WITH THAT?
- Our ordinary mind, our ordinary life consists of nothing else but
- avoiding this and pursuing that, but the life of "reason", that
- rises up at times from some submerged realm into conscious life
- is far other:
- The mind, when once it has withdrawn itself to itself and
- realized its own power has neither part nor lot with the soft
- and pleasant, or harsh and painful motions of thy breath.
- (Marcus Aurelius)
- IF YOU WISH TO TRAVEL IN THE VEHICLE,
- DO NOT DISLIKE THE SIX DUSTS.
- The Six Dusts are qualities produced by the objects and organs of
- sense: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and idea. The One
- Vehicle is the Mahayana, the vehicle of Oneness. The
- "Saddharmapundarika Sutra" ("Hokkekyo") says:
- Only one vehicle of the Law,
- Not two, and not three.
- The Six Dusts, that is, the body and its attendant misguided
- ideas, are the cause of all our unhappiness and suffering, and
- prevent us from seeing things as they really are and from having
- the peace of mind that is our birthright. But an old waka says,
- illustrating the way in which nothing is good or bad of its
- nature, but thinking makes it so:
- Sin and evil
- Are not to be got rid of
- Just blindly;
- Look at the astringent persimmons!
- They turn into sweet dried ones.
- If you get rid of the unripe, astringent persimmon, how shall you
- obtain the ripe one? Get rid of the Six Dusts, and where will the
- One Vehicle be? A well known poetess has said the same thing in a
- more sentimental manner:
- He would not give me a lodging;
- How disagreeable it was!
- But through his kindness,
- I could sleep beneath the cherry-blossoms
- Under the hazy moon that night.
- INDEED, NOT HATING THE SIX DUSTS
- IS IDENTICAL WITH REAL ENLIGHTENMENT.
- This absence of hatred, of intolerance, disgust, righteous
- indignation, discrimination and judging, is itself the state of
- Buddhahood. This negativeness, however, is not that of the
- opposite of affirmation. It is not the passive condition it seems
- to be, neither can it be described by the words "love our
- enemies". It is not absence of feeling, of indifference, but some
- unnameable attitude of mind in which evil is accepted as such
- though not condoned. It is descried by George Eliot in following
- way:
- "Ay sir", said Luke, as he gave his arm to his master,
- "you will make up your mind to it a bit better, when you've seen
- everything; you'll get used to it. That's what my mother says
- about her shortness of breath - she says she's made friends wi'
- it, though she fought against it when it first came in".
- ("The Mill on the Floss")
- In a word, we must not hate hatred.
- THE WISE MAN DOES NOTHING,
- THE FOOL SHACKLES HIMSELF.
- The wise passivity is that of nature:
- The buds swell imperceptibly without hurry or confusion, as if
- the short spring day were an eternity.
- (Thoreau, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers")
- We bind ourselves with our likes and dislikes, we are bound with
- fancied bonds. There is nothing so strong in the world as a
- delusion, nothing so indestructible as this imaginary,
- non-existent self and its temporary profit and loss, loving and
- loathing.
Introduction
Page One ... Page Two ...
Page Three ... Without Commentary ... Cleary Translation ... Shinjin-No-Mei D.T.Suzuki
A translation known as Faith Mind by Clark is a W.I.P.
as is the original Chinese