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
ON BELIEVING IN MIND (1) (SHINJIN-NO-MEI)
by Chien-chih Seng-ts'an (Sosan)
Third Zen Patriarch [Died 606CE]
Translated by D.T.Suzuki (2)
- The Perfect Way knows no difficulties
- Except that it refuses to make preferences;
- Only when freed from hate and love,
- It reveals itself fully and without disguise;
- A tenth of an inch's difference,
- And heaven and earth are set apart;
- If you wish to see it before your own eyes,
- Have no fixed thoughts either for or against it.
- To set up what you like against what you dislike
- This is the disease of the mind:
- When the deep meaning [of the Way] is not understood
- Peace of mind is disturbed to no purpose.
- [The Way is] perfect like unto vast space,
- With nothing wanting, nothing superfluous:
- It is indeed due to making choice
- That its suchness is lost sight of.
- Pursue not the outer entanglements,
- Dwell not in the inner void;
- Be serene in the oneness of things,
- And [dualism] vanishes by itself.
- When you strive to gain quiescence by stopping motion,
- The quiescence thus gained is ever in motion;
- As long as you tarry in the dualism,
- How can you realize oneness?
- And when oneness is not thoroughly understood,
- In two ways loss is sustained:
- The denying of reality is the asserting of it,
- And the asserting of emptiness is the denying of it.
- Wordiness and intellection -
- The more with them the further astray we go;
- Away therefore with wordiness and intellection,
- And there is no place where we cannot pass freely.
- When we return to the root, we gain the meaning;
- When we pursue external objects, we lose the reason.
- The moment we are enlightened within,
- We go beyond the voidness of a world confronting us.
- Transformations going on in an empty world which confronts us
- Appear real all because of Ignorance:
- Try not to seek after the true,
- Only cease to cherish opinions.
- Abide not with dualism,
- Carefully avoid pursuing it;
- As soon as you have right and wrong,
- Confusion ensues, and Mind is lost.
- The two exist because of the One,
- But hold not even to this One;
- When a mind is not disturbed,
- The ten thousand things offer no offence.
- No offence offered, and no ten thousand things;
- No disturbance going, and no mind set up to work:
- The subject is quieted when the object ceases,
- The object ceases when the subject is quieted.
- The object is an object for the subject,
- The subject is a subject for the object:
- Know that the relativity of the two
- Rests ultimately on one Emptiness.
- In one Emptiness the two are not distinguished,
- And each contains in itself all the ten thousand things
- When no discrimination is made between this and that.
- How can a one-sided and prejudiced view arise?
- The Great Way is calm and large-hearted,
- For it, nothing is easy, nothing is hard;
- Small views are irresolute,
- The more in haste the tardier they go.
- Clinging is never kept within bounds,
- It is sure to go the wrong way;
- Quit it, and things follow their own courses,
- While the Essence neither departs nor abides.
- Obey the nature of things, and you are in concord with the Way,
- Calm and easy and free from annoyance;
- But when your thoughts are tied, you turn away from the truth,
- They grow heavier and duller and are not at all sound.
- When they are not sound, the spirit is troubled;
- What is the use of being partial and one-sided then?
- If you want to walk the course of the One Vehicle,
- Be not prejudiced against the six sense-objects.
- When you are not prejudiced against the six sense-objects,
- You are then one with the Enlightenment;
- The wise are non-active,
- While the ignorant bind themselves up;
- While in the Dharma itself there is no individuation,
- They ignorantly attach themselves to particular objects.
- It is their own mind that creates illusions –
- Is this not the greatest of all self-contradictions?
- The ignorant cherish the idea of rest and unrest,
- The enlightened have no likes and dislikes:
- All forms of dualism
- Are contrived by the ignorant themselves.
- They are like unto visions and flowers in the air;
- Why should we trouble ourselves to take hold of them?
- Gain and loss, right and wrong –
- Away with them once for all!
- If an eye never falls asleep,
- All dreams will by themselves cease:
- If the Mind retains its absoluteness,
- The ten thousand things are of one Suchness.
- When the deep mystery of one Suchness is fathomed,
- All of a sudden we forget the external entanglements;
- When the ten thousand things are viewed in their oneness,
- We return to the origin and remain where we ever have been.
- Forget the wherefore of things,
- And we attain to a state beyond analogy;
- Movement stopped and there is no movement,
- Rest set in motion and there is no rest;
- When dualism does no more obtain,
- Oneness itself abides not.
- The ultimate end of things where they cannot go any further
- Is not bound by rules and measures:
- In the Mind harmonious [with the Way] we have the principle of identity,
- In which we find all strivings quieted;
- Doubts and irresolutions are completely done away with,
- And the right faith is straightened;
- There is nothing left behind,
- There is nothing retained,
- All is void, lucid, and self-illuminating;
- There is no exertion, no waste of energy
- This is where thinking never attains,
- This is where the imagination fails to measure.
- In the higher realm of true Suchness
- There is neither "self" nor "other":
- When direct identification is sought,
- We can only say, "Not two".
- In being "not two" all is the same,
- All that is is comprehended in it;
- The wise in the ten quarters,
- They all enter into this Absolute Reason.
- This Absolute Reason is beyond quickening [time] and extending [space],
- For it one instant is ten thousand years;
- Whether we see it or not,
- It is manifest everywhere in all the ten quarters.
- Infinitely small things are as large as large things can be,
- For here no external conditions obtain;
- Infinitely large things are as small as small things can be,
- For objective limits are here of no consideration.
- What is is the same as what is not,
- What is not is the same as what is:
- Where this state of things fails to obtain,
- Indeed, no tarrying there.
- One in All,
- All in One –
- If only this is realized,
- No more worry about your not being perfect!
- Where Mind and each believing mind are not divided,
- And undivided are each believing mind and Mind,
- This is where words fail;
- For it is not of the past, present, and future.
Notes
1. On translating the word Hsin, D.T.Suzuki notes: "The Mind = the Way = the One = Emptiness." In another footnote he says: "Mind = hsin. Hsin is one of those Chinese words which defy translation.……..If we could leave hsin [untranslated] with all its nuance of meaning in this translation, it would save us from the difficulties that face us in its English rendering. For hsin means "mind", "soul", "spirit"- each singly as well as all inclusively."
2. D.T.Suzuki, Manual Of Zen Buddhism, New York: Evergreen Edition, 1960.
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