Jikihara Gyokusei - Hsin-hsin Ming: Verses on the Faith-Mind

Copyright 1973, 1984, 2001 by Richard B. Clarke All rights reserved. This work, or portions thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission. Printed and bound in the United States of America. Illustrations: From Goko Fugetsushu Copyright 1970 by Gyokusei Jikihara.

Sogensha, Osaka, Japan ISBN 1-893996-14-X This volume was published by White Pine Press, P.O. Box 236, Buffalo, NY 14201

What are we to say of a persons lifeof this mans life and its relevance to usSeng-tsan, called Sosan by the Japanese? We know that he lived and that he died, and that certain tales are told of him, and certain words attributed to him. His death is said to have occurred in the year six hundred and six of our counting of time. Neither his birth date nor his birth place is recordedwho after all was to know? Only a few biographical fragments about him exist. He apparently wandered as a mendicant and during a persecution of Buddhists, lived anonymously in the mountains. He is said to have been notably kind and gentle and to have come to the dropping away of all bondage and illusion, with the help of Huike his teacher, thus realizing in his own life the full light of the awakened mind, which is the birthright available to all human beings.

He expressed his Realization by affirming that what Buddhists and others had called defilements are the same as Buddha Nature. That is, there is only One, undefilable, Reality. Seng-tsan received Transmission from Huike and became thereby what we call the third Chinese patriarch of Zen. He continued a poor wandering monk, eventually transmitting this Zen-essence to Tao Hsin (Doshin in Japanese), who became his successor in the teaching lineage. Nothing special. And he is said to have written this piece, the Hsin-hsin Ming, perhaps the first Chinese Zen document, provisionally translated here.

These Verses on the Faith-mind represent the essence of Zen. They encourage the awakening of spiritual intelligence and invite actualization of the essence of Zen as your own life. This is all you need. Dont be distracted by stories about Seng-tsanfor example, that he was a leper who cured himself through Zen practice, or that he may not really have been the author of these verses. And do not be diverted by attempts to define the Faith-mind. Most of all, do not be attached to stories about your self.

Just find true practice and align with it, in every moment of your life. Thus will you come to know the True Self, shared by Seng-tsan and you and all things. Thus Zen will be fulfilled in you and give abundant life to your life. May this be so for you.

The Great Way is not difficult for those not attached to preferences. When neither love nor hate arises, all is clear and undisguised.

Separate by the smallest amount, however, and you are as far from it as heaven is from earth. If you wish to know the truth, then hold to no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind. When the fundamental nature of things is not recognized the minds essential peace is disturbed to no avail. The Way is perfect, as vast space is perfect, where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess. Indeed, it is due to our grasping and rejecting that we do not know the true nature of things.

Live neither in the entanglements of outer things, nor in ideas or feelings of emptiness. Be serene and at one with things and erroneous views will disappear by themselves. When you try to stop activity to achieve quietude, your very effort fills you with activity. As long as you remain attached to one extreme or another you will never know Oneness. Those who do not live in the Single Way cannot be free in either activity or quietude, in assertion or denial. Deny the reality of things and you miss their reality; Assert the emptiness of things and you miss their reality.

The more you talk and think about it, the further you wander from the truth. So cease attachment to talking and thinking, and there is nothing you will not be able to know. To return to the root is to find the essence, but to pursue appearances or enlightenment is to miss the Source. To awaken even for a moment is to go beyond appearance and emptiness. Changes that seem to occur in the empty world we make real only because of our ignorance. Do not seek for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.

Do not remain in a dualistic state; avoid such easy habits carefully. If you attach even to a trace of this and that, of right and wrong, the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion. Although all dualities arise from the One, do not be attached even to ideas of this One. When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way, there is no objection to anything in the world; and when there is no objection to anything, things cease to bein the old way. When no discriminating attachment arises, the old mind ceases to exist. Let go of things as separate existences and mind too vanishes.

Likewise when the thinking subject vanishes so too do the objects created by mind. The arising of other gives rise to self; giving rise to self generates other. Know these seeming two as facets of the One Fundamental Reality. In this Emptiness, these two are really one and each contains all phenomena. If not comparing, nor attached to refined and vulgar you will not fall into judgment and opinion. The Great Way is embracing and spacious to live in it is neither easy nor difficult.

Those who rely on limited views are fearful and irresolute: the faster they hurry, the slower they go. To have a narrow mind, and to be attached to getting enlightenment is to lose ones center and go astray. When one is free from attachment, all things are as they are, and there is neither coming nor going. When in harmony with the nature of things, your own fundamental nature, you will walk freely and undisturbed. However, when mind is in bondage, the truth is hidden, and everything is murky and unclear, and the burdensome practice of judging brings annoyance and weariness. What benefit can be derived from attachment to distinctions and separations? If you wish to move in the One Way do not dislike the worlds of senses and ideas.

Indeed, to embrace them fully is identical with true Enlightenment. The wise person attaches to no goals but the foolish person fetters himself or herself. There is one Dharma, without differentiation. Distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant. To seek Mind with the discriminating mind is the greatest of mistakes. Rest and unrest derive from illusion; with enlightenment, attachment to liking and disliking ceases.

All dualities come from ignorant inference. They are like dreams, phantoms, hallucinations it is foolish to try to grasp them. Gain and loss, right and wrong: finally abandon all such thoughts at once. If the eye never sleeps, all dreams will naturally cease. If the mind makes no discriminations, the ten thousand things are as they are, of single essence. To realize the mystery of this One-essence is to be released from all entanglements.

When all things are seen without differentiation, the One Self-essence is everywhere revealed. No comparisons or analogies are possible in this causeless, relationless state of just this One. When movement stops, there is no movement and when no movement, there is no stopping. When such dualities cease to exist Oneness itself cannot exist. To this ultimate state no law or description applies. For the Realized mind at one with the Way all self-centered striving ceases.