Зен приказни

[Pica pica]

Master Yourself
Love yourself and be awake –
Today, tomorrow, always.
First establish yourself in the Way, then teach others,
And so defeat sorrow.
To straighten the crooked
You must first do a harder thing –
Straighten yourself.
You are your only master.
Who else?
Subdue yourself,
And discover your master.

 

[Pica pica]

Zen Poems

Emptiness Poem
Old P'ang requires nothing in the world:
All is empty with him, even a seat he has not,
For absolute Emptiness reigns in his household;
How empty indeed it is with no treasures!
When the sun is risen, he walks through Emptiness,
When the sun sets, he sleeps in Emptiness;
Sitting in Emptiness he sings his empty songs,
And his empty songs reverberate through Emptiness:
Be not surprised at Emptiness so thoroughly empty,
For Emptiness is the seat of all the Buddhas;
And Emptiness is not understood by the men of the world,
But Emptiness is the real treasure:
If you say there's no Emptiness,
You commit grave offence against the Buddhas.

Without Name and Form
Well versed in the Buddha way,
I go the non-Way
Without abandoning my
Ordinary person's affairs.
The conditioned and
Name-and-form,
All are flowers in the sky.
Nameless and formless,
I leave birth-and-death.

Mind at Peace
When the mind is at peace,
the world too is at peace.
Nothing real, nothing absent.
Not holding on to reality,
not getting stuck in the void,
you are neither holy or wise, just
an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.

 

[Pica pica]

No-mind – pure immediacy in the fullness of things as they are, as experienced, for example,
during shikantaza
1
. This experience of “without thinking” is characterised by:

· non-positional attitude: neither affirming nor negating, consciousness is no longer
an intentional vector proceeding from a subject to an object but is, rather, an open
dynamic field in which objects present themselves;
· no subject-object distinction: the subject has disappeared;
· immediacy: without a subject standing back, the experience is of immediacy within
the dynamic field of consciousness;
· fullness: because the object is not filtered through an intentional act, it presents itself
in its fullness;
· purity and simplicity: the pure presence of things as they are.

 

[Abraxas]

A Zen student came to Bankei and complained: "Master, I have an ungovernable temper. How can I cure it?"

"You have something very strange," replied Bankei. "Let me see what you have."

"Just now I cannot show it to you," replied the other.

"When can you show it to me?" asked Bankei.

"It arises unexpectedly," replied the student.

"Then," concluded Bankei, "it must not be your own true nature. If it were, you could show it to me at any time. When you were born you did not have it, and your parents did not give it to you. Think that over."

 

[Pica pica]

Working Very Hard


A martial arts student went to his teacher and said earnestly, "I am devoted to studying your martial system. How long will it take me to master it."

The teacher's reply was casual, "Ten years."

Impatiently, the student answered, "But I want to master it faster than that. I will work very hard. I will practice everyday, ten or more hours a day if I have to. How long will it take then?"

The teacher thought for a moment,
"20 years."

 

[Pica pica]

The Nature of Things

Two monks were washing their bowls in the river when they noticed a scorpion that was drowning. One monk immediately scooped it up and set it upon the bank. In the process he was stung. He went back to washing his bowl and again the scorpion fell in. The monk saved the scorpion and was again stung.

The other monk asked him, "Friend, why do you continue to save the scorpion when you know it's nature is to sting?"

"Because," the monk replied, "to save it is my nature."

 

[Pica pica]

A Letter to a Dying Man

Bassui wrote the following letter to one of his disciples who was about to die:

"The essence of your mind is not born, so it will never die. It is not an existance, which is perishable. It is not an emptiness, which is a mere void. It has neither color nor form. It enjoys no pleasures and suffers no pains.

"I know you are very ill. Like a good Zen student, you are facing that sickness squarely. You may not know exactly who is suffering, but question yourself: What is the essence of this mind? Think only of this. You will need no more. Covet nothing. Your end which is endless is as a snowflake dissolving in the pure air."

 

[Lena]

 

[Lena]

 

[Idiot]

Царот го прашал мастер учителот, - "Што се случува со просветлениот после смртта?
„Од каде да знам?ˮ - одговорил учителот.
„Бидејќи си мајстор, просветлен" - одговорил царот.
„Да, но не и мртовˮ - возвратил мудрецот