Peace Elements
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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


"Poem on the True Mind" by Seng Ts'an,
from "The Story of Chinese Zen" by
Nan Huai-Chin, Thomas Cleary trans:



The Ultimate Way is without difficulty,
It's only averse to discrimination:
Just do not hate or love,
And it will be thoroughly clear.


A hairsbreadth's miss
Is as the distance between sky and earth.
If you want to have it appear before you
Don't keep conforming and opposing.


Opposition and conformity struggling
Become a sickness in the mind.
If you don't know the hidden truth
You work in vain at quieting thought.


It is round as space,
Without lack or excess.
It is indeed because of grasping and rejecting
That you are therefore not thus.


Do not pursue existing objects,
Do not dwell in forbearance of voidness:
In a uniformly equanimous heart
These quietly disappear of themselves.


Stop movement to return to stillness,
And stopping makes even more movement:
As long as you remain in dual extremes,
How can you know they're of one kind?


If you don't know they're of one kind,
You will lose efficacy in both realms.
Trying to follow emptiness is turning
away from emptiness.


Much talk and much cogitation
Estranges you from it even more:
Stop talking and cogitating,
And you penetrate everywhere.


Return to the root and you get the essence;
Follow perceptions and you lose the source.
The instant you turn awareness around,
You transcend the emptiness before the eon.


Changes in the emptiness before us
All come from arbitrary views:
It is not necessary to seek reality,
All that is needed is ending the views.


Dualistic views do not abide;
Be careful not to pursue them.
As soon as there is affirmation and denial,
You lose your mind in confusion.


Two exist because of one;
Do not even keep the one.
When the one mind is unborn,
Myriad things have no fault.


No fault, no things;
Unborn, unminding.
When the subject disappears from objects,
Objects submerge along with the subject.


Objects are objects because of the subject,
The subject is the subject because of objects.
If you want to know them both,
they are basically one void.


One voidness the same in both
Equally contains myriad images.
If you do not see fine and coarse,
How could there be preference?


The Great Way is broad,
Without ease or difficulty.
Small views and foxy doubts
Show you up the more you hurry.


If you cling to it, you lose measure
And will inevitably enter a false path.
Let it be as it naturally is;
Its body neither goes nor stays.


Let your nature merge with the Way,
And you will roam free of vexation.
Tying down thoughts goes against the real;
Oblivion is not good.


It is not good to belabor the spirit;
Why estrange the familiar?
If you want to gain the way of oneness,
Don't be averse to the six sense fields.


The six sense fields are not bad;
After all they're the same as true awakening.
The wise do not contrive;
Fools bind themselves.


Things are not different in themselves;
You arbitrarily get attached yourself.
If you take the mind to use the mind,
Is this not a big mistake?


When deluded, you create peace and chaos,
When enlightened, there is no good or bad.
All dualistic extremes
Come from subjective considerations.


Dreams, illusions, flowers in the air;
Why bother to grasp them?
Gain, loss, right, wrong;
Let them all go at once.


If the eyes do not sleep,
Dreams disappear of themselves.
If the mind does not differ,
All things are one suchness.


One suchness embodies the mystery,
Utterly still and unconditioned.
To see all things equally
Is to return again to the natural state.


Without any reason, therefore,
You cannot judge or compare.
Stopping is movement without motion;
Movement is still without stopping:\.


Since both are not established,
How can one be such?
When you find out the ultimate consummation,
You do not keep rules and models.


When the mind in harmony is equanimous,
All doings come to rest.
When doubts are thoroughly cleared,
True belief is directly in tune.


Nothing at all stays;
There's nothing to fix in mind.
When open and clear, spontaneously aware,
You aren't wasting mental effort.


The realm that is not an object of thought
Cannot be assessed by conscious feelings.
The reality realm of true suchness
Has no other or self.


If you want to tune in right away,
Just speak of nonduality.
Nonduality is all the same;
There's nothing it doesn't contain.


The wise ones of the ten directions
All enter this source.
The source is neither expansive nor contracted;
One instant is ten thousand years.


There is nowhere that it is not;
The ten directions are right before the eyes.
The small is the same as the large;
You forget all about the bounds of objects.
The largest is the same as the small;
You do not see beyond it.


Being is none other than nonbeing
Nonbeing is none other than being;
Anything that is not like this,
Definitely should not be kept.


One is all,
All are one;
If you can just be like this,
What ruminations will not end?


The true mind is nondual,
Nonduality makes the mind true.
There's no more way to talk of it;
It is not past, or future, or present.

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


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