void

Jewel Beyond All Price

Gill Washington Enlightenment, Huang Po, Zen , , , , 0 Comment

From The Zen Teachings of Huang Po
Edited by John Blofeld

Though others may talk of the Way of the Bhuddas as something to be reached by various pious practices and by sutra study, you must have nothing to do with such ideas. A perception, sudden as blinking, that subject and object are one, will lead to a deeply mysterious wordless understanding; and by this understanding will you awake to the truth of Zen. When you happen upon someone who has no understanding, you must claim to know nothing. He may he delighted by his discovery of some “way to Enlightenment”; yet if you allow yourselves to be persuaded by him, you will experience no delight at all, but suffer both sorrow and disappointment. What have such thoughts as his to do with the study of Zen? Even if you do obtain from him some trifling “method,” it will only be a thought-constructed dharma having nothing to do with Zen. Thus, Bodhidharma sat rapt in meditation before a wall; he did not seek to lead people into having opinions. Therefore it is written: “To put out of the mind even the principle from which action springs is the true teaching of the Buddhas, while dualism belongs to the sphere of the demons.” Your true nature is something never lost to you even in moments of delusion, nor is it gained at the moment of Enlightenment. It is the Nature of the Bhutatathata. In it is neither delusion nor right understanding. It fills the Void everywhere and is intrinsically of the substance of the One Mind. How, then, can your mind-created objects exist outside of the Void? The Void is fundamentally without spacial dimensions, passions, activities,delusions, or right understanding. You must clearly understand that in it there are no things, no men, no Buddhas; for this Void contains not the smallest hairsbreadth of anything that can be viewed spatially; it depends on nothing and is attached to nothing. It is all-pervading, spotless beauty;it is the self-existent and uncreated Absolute. Then how can it ever be a matter for discussion that the real Buddha has no mouth and preaches no dharma, or that real hearing requires no ears, for who could hear it? Ah,it is a jewel beyond all price!

More from Huang Po

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Selected Poems from Rafael Stoneman

Gill Washington Poems, Rafael Stoneman, Spirituality , , , , 0 Comment

If not for the poet

If not for the poet, who would be the voice of love?
If not for the artist, who would be the brush of sight?
If not for the mother, who would walk the earth?
If not for the Beloved, who would truly live?

 

Like ripened figs

Like ripened figs plucked for the mouths of babes,
or honey suckled by the working servant bee,
our innermost heart layer subsides when Self
shines as Sun in the sky of our mind’s eye.

 

With one tiny twist

With one tiny twist of an unknowable knob,
the inner color shifts from red to pink,
and a flower about to wilt, perks up in full vigor.
Enthusiasm, I call you friend!
Heart, I call you home!

 

I meet you in the void

I meet you in the void beyond time.
I shall remain here with you forever.
I have no life left to live, my Beloved.
Yet it feels so good to feel You living in me.
Do you feel that goodness Yourself,
since there is in truth no me?
I cannot touch this in words.
For I have no mind left to grasp.
I explode in the heart. I am Your I.

 

There is a whisper

There is a whisper, but it’s louder than the wind.
It calls to us, “Come Home. The story is over, the pages are worn thin. Come
home.” It’s like a chant,
a sacred OM underlying all else. It requires no doing anything, or going
anywhere or becoming anything.
If only we see that we are this whispering sound,
all else will dissolve into peace.

 

singing tears

The dam has been bursting all along,
singing tears of the mountain’s song.

The puppet breaks free from its strings,
the caterpillar soars with new wings.

Dreamers shall awaken beyond time,
in love with a human heart so divine.

The actor surrenders the final mask,
in Your light all life comes to bask.

A fruit suddenly drops from its tree,
such sweetness like honey is to be.

All poetry by Rafael Stoneman

Index of poets on Allspirit