Bamboo and Plum Blossom

Bamboo and Plum Blossom

Bamboo and Plum Blossom

Bamboo and Plum Blossom
Bamboo and Plum Blossom

Sunday, October 31, 2010

A Zen Harvest: Japanese Folk Zen Sayings,



Hearing a crow with no mouth
Cry in the deep
Darkness of the night,
I feel a longing for
My father before he was born.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Seng Ts'an



"If you want to follow the doctrine of the One,
Do not rage against the World of the Senses.
Only by accepting the World of the Senses
Can you share in the True Perception."

Friday, October 29, 2010

Chuangtzu



"The perfect man has no self;
the spiritual man has no achievement;
the sage has no name."

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Hakuin (1685-1768), Song of Meditation



For such as, reflecting within themselves,
Testify to the truth of Self-nature,
To the truth that Self-nature is no-nature,
They have really gone beyond the ken of sophistry.
For them opens the gate of the oneness of cause and effect,
And straight runs the path of non-duality and non-trinity.
Abiding with the not-particular which is in particulars,
Whether going or returning, they remain for ever unmoved;
Taking hold of the not-thought which lies in thoughts,
In every act of theirs they hear the voice of the truth.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Hsueh-tou (980-1052),



Dust and sand in his eyes, dirt in his ears,
He doesn't consent to stay in the myriad peaks.
Falling flowers, flowing streams, very vast.
Suddenly raising my eyebrows - where has he gone?

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

a question for Te Shan



Past mind can't be grasped,
Present mind can't be grasped,
Future mind can't be grasped.
With which mind will you drink this tea?

Monday, October 25, 2010

Tao Te Ching #2



Being and non-being produce each other.
Difficulty and ease bring about each other.
Long and short delimit each other.
High and low rest on each other.
Sound and voice harmonize each other.
Front and back follow each other.

Therefore the sage abides in the condition of unattached action.
And carries out the wordless teaching.
Here, the myriad things are made, yet not separated.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Liu Han fl. 1190




Autumn at the Gate
Liu Han fl. 1190

The quacking is gone the jade screen is empty
My pillow feels cool fanned by the wind
Autumn sounds wake me but where are their traces
Paulownia leaves cover the steps in the moonlight

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Wang Wei, 699-761



Mountain fruit drop in the rain
and grass insects sing under my oil lamp.
White hair, after all, can never change
as yellow gold cannot be created.
If you want to know how to get rid
of age, its sickness, study nonbeing.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Tozan Ryokai, The Song of the Jeweled Mirror Samadhi





A serving of snow in a silver bowl,
Or herons concealed in the glare of the moon
Apart, they seem similar, together, they're different.
Meaning cannot rest in words,
It adapts itself to that which arises.
Tremble and you're lost in a trap,
Miss and there's always regrets.

Thursday, October 21, 2010






To get listed in our badge insert this code & get full stats.
-Easily track unique visitors and impressions-



Layman P'ang



Food and clothes sustain
Body and life;
I advise you to learn
Being as is.
When it’s time,
I move my hermitage and go,
And there’s nothing
To be left behind.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Tantric Buddhist Women's Songs, 8th - 11th c.



Who speaks the sound of an echo?
Who paints the image in a mirror?
Where are the spectacles in a dream?
Nowhere at all -- that's the nature of mind!

Monday, October 18, 2010

Wang Wei (701 - 761)



Autumn Dusk in the Mountains
Wang Wei (701 - 761)

After the new rain
in the secluded mountains,
It is getting cool,
with an autumn message
arriving at dusk.
The bright moon shines
through the pines,
The clear stream flows
over the rocks.
A stir in the bamboo groves --
the washing women come home
as the swaying lotus leaves usher in
fishing boats down the stream.
The spring splendor fading,
the mountains remain
as an appealing abode to me.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Foyan



It is as though you have an eye
That sees all forms
But does not see itself.
This is how your mind is.
Its light penetrates everywhere
And engulfs everything,
So why does it not know itself?

Friday, October 15, 2010

Chang Chin-ch'en, From the Golden Age of Zen



In a moonlit night on a spring day,
the croak of a frog
pierces through the whole cosmos
turning it into
a single family.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Matsuo Basho



A crow
Perched on a withered tree
In the autumn evening.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Bodhidharma



A deluded Mind
~

A deluded mind is hell.

Without delusions.
the mind is the country of the Buddhas.

When the mind creates the idea of the mind.
people are deluded and in hell.

Those established on the path to Buddhahood
don’t use the mind to create the idea
of the mind and so are always
in the country of the Buddhas.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Yun-men (864-949), Blue Cliff Record and Book of Equannimity



Master, I am new here.
What is your teaching?
"Have you already eaten your gruel?"
Yes.
"Go wash your bowl."
Master, what more can you teach me?
"ABCDEF."
I do not understand.
"GHIJKL."
Thank you, Master.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Thich Nhat Hanh



Disappearance
.
The leaf tips bend
under the weight of dew.
Fruits are ripening
in Earth's early morning.
Daffodils light up in the sun.
The curtain of cloud at the gateway
of the garden path begins to shift:
have pity for childhood,
the way of illusion.

Late at night,
the candle gutters.
In some distant desert,
a flower opens.
And somewhere else,
a cold aster
that never knew a cassava patch
or gardens of areca palms,
never knew the joy of life,
at that instant disappears-
man's eternal yearning.

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Linji



If you want to be free,
Get to know your real self.
It has no form, no appearance,
No root, no basis, no abode,
But is lively and buoyant.
It responds with versatile facility,
But its function cannot be located.
Therefore when you look for it,
You become further from it;
When you seek it,
You turn away from it all the more.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Hasan of Basra



I asked a child, walking with a candle,
"From where comes that light?"
Instantly he blew it out.
"Tell me where it is gone --
then I will tell you where it came from."

Thursday, October 7, 2010

The Song of Pan Kou



Old Pan Kou knows nothing about time
and nothing about space has well.
His life is self-natured and self-sufficient.
He needs to ask for nothing outside of his own being.
The genesis of the world is the exercise of his mind.
When his mind starts to think, the world starts to move.
The world has never been made by any special desing.
Neither has an end ever been put to it.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Li Shimin (Emperor Taizong 597-649)



Autumn Chant
Li Shimin (Emperor Taizong 597-649)

Chrysanthemums scattering in a rising autumn wind,
Lotus blooms, rarer now, jade dewdrop-pearled.
Heralding the autumn, lines of wild geese flying;
Departed is the summer, in the trees only a few cicadas.
Cloud-mists freeze, glooming half the hills;
Crimson clouds ravel, lacing the high heavens;
As if from Chengdu my eyes look up
And there before me stands Omei.

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Huang Po



Above, below and around you, all is
Spontaneously exisitng, for
There is nowhere which is
Outside Buddha-Mind.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Seng Ts'an



The ultimate Path is without difficulty.
Just avoid picking and choosing.

Friday, October 1, 2010

Aditta Sutra



Then in the end
one leaves the body
together with one's possessions.
Knowing this, the intelligent man
Enjoys possessions and gives.

Having enjoyed and given
in line with his means,
uncensored he goes
to the heavenly state.

- Aditta Sutra