Translation of Buddhist poem:
Faith in Mind
Chinese title: Hsin-Hsin Ming; Japanese title: Shinjinmei
by Third Chinese Patriarch, Seng-Ts’an; Japanese: Sosan (died 606 CE)
The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are absent it will reveal itself and everything will be clear.
Make the smallest distinction however and you are as far from it as heaven is from earth.
To realize the truth, hold no opinions for or against anything.
Like and dislike are the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning (the Way) is not known, intrinsic peace of mind is disturbed to no avail.
The Way is perfect like the vast universe, with nothing lacking or in excess
It is due to choosing to accept or reject, that you do not see the true nature of things as they are.
Do not live in the entanglements of external things;
Do not get lost in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be still in the one-ness of things,
And the error of dualism disappears.
When you try to stop activity to achieve quietude,
That very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you retain dualism, remaining in one extreme or another,
You will never know the One-ness of the Way.
Those not in harmony with the Way,
Fail in activity and passivity, in assertion and denial.
Deny the reality of things, you miss their reality;
Assert the reality of things, you miss their reality.
The more you talk or think about it the further you are from the truth.
Stop talking and thinking about it and everything will be revealed to you.
To return to the root is to find the essence,
To pursue appearances is to miss the source.
At the moment of enlightenment you go beyond appearances and emptiness.
Changes that seem to occur in the world, appear real only because of ignorance.
Do not search for the truth, just cease having opinions.
Do not hold to dualistic views, avoid such habits carefully.
If there is even a trace of this and that or right and wrong, the mind is lost in confusion.
Although all dualities arise from the One,
Do not cling even to the One.
When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,
Everything is without fault, nothing can offend it.
When things can no longer be faulty and discriminations cease, it is as if there are no things.
When the mind can no longer be disturbed in this way, it is as if there is no mind.
When thought-objects vanish, the thinking-subject vanishes.
When the mind vanishes, objects vanish.
The arising of other gives rise to self;
Giving rise to self generates the other.
Know these seemingly two facets as one emptiness.
In this emptiness the two are indistinguishable,
And each contains in itself the whole.
When no discrimination is made between this and that,
How can you be tempted to prejudice and opinion, to prefer one to another?
To live in the Great Way is all-embracing, not easy, not difficult.
But those with limited views are fearful and irresolute;
The faster they hurry, the slower they go,
And clinging (attachment) cannot be limited, they go too far.
Even an attachment to enlightenment is to go astray.
Just let things be in their own way as they are,
And there will be neither coming nor going.
Be in harmony with the Way,
And you will be free of disturbances.
Tied by thoughts, you lose the truth, become unclear, weary, unwell.
When not well the mind is troubled.
Then why cling to or reject anything,
Why make distinctions and judgments?
If you wish to move in the Way,
do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.
Indeed to accept them fully is identical with true Enlightenment.
The wise strive to no goals, but the foolish fetter themselves.
There is one Dharma, not many;
Distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant.
To use discriminating mind to seek the Way,
Is the greatest of all mistakes.
Peaceful and troubled derive from illusions of thinking.
With enlightenment there is no liking or disliking.
All dualities come from ignorant inference.
They are like dreams or flowers in the air, the foolish try to grasp them.
Gain and loss, right and wrong,
Such thoughts must finally be abolished at once.
If the eye never sleeps, all dreams will naturally cease.
If the mind makes no discriminations, all things are as they are, of One-essence.
To understand the mystery of this One-essence is to be released from all entanglements.
When all things are seen equally without differentiation,
Your timeless Self-essence is achieved and is One with the Way of the universe as it is.
No explanations, comparisons or analogies are possible in this causeless, relationless state.
Consider the movement in the stationary, and the stationary in motion,
Both movement and stillness disappear.
When such dualities cease to exist, even Oneness itself cannot exist.
This ultimate state is not bound by rules and descriptions and none can be applied.
For the unified mind at one with the Way, all self-centered striving ceases.
Doubts and irresolutions vanish and Truth is in you.
With a single stroke you are freed from bondage.
Nothing clings to you and you hold to nothing.
All is void, clear, and self-illuminating, with no need to exert the mind.
Here thought, feeling, knowledge, and imagination are of no value.
In this world of “suchness” there is neither self nor other.
To come directly into harmony with such reality, only express non-duality.
When doubt arises simply say “Not two.”
In this non-duality nothing is separate, nothing is excluded.
The enlightened at all times and places personally enter and realize this Truth.
This Truth is beyond space and time,
Beyond extension or diminution.
One instant is eternity, a single thought a thousand years,
Not here, not there – not this, not that,
Everything, everywhere, always, the entire universe right before you.
Infinitely large, infinitely small, no difference,
For definitions have vanished; no boundaries can be discerned.
So too with “existence” and “non-existence.”
Do not waste time in doubts and arguments, attempting to find the Way,
Or attempt to use logic, thought and language to comprehend or find the Way.
One thing all things move among and intermingle without distinction.
To live this realization is to be without anxiety about perfection or non-perfection.
To live this faith is the road to non-duality.
Non-duality is one with trusting mind.
Words! Words!
The Way is beyond language.
Words never could, can not now, and never will describe the Way.