Pali Refuges

Pali Refuges

Buddham Saranam Gacchami
Dhammam Saranam Gacchami
Sangham Saranam Gacchami

Dutiyampi Buddham Saranam Gacchami
Dutiyampi Dhammam Saranam Gacchami
Dutiyampi Sangham Saranam Gacchami

Tatiyampi Buddham Saranam Gacchami
Tatiyampi Dhammam Saranam Gacchami
Tatiyampi Sangham Saranam Gacchami

Grass Roof

 Song of the Grass-Roof Hermitage

by Shitou Xiqian

I've built a grass hut where there's nothing of value.
After eating, I relax and enjoy a nap.
When the hut was completed, fresh weeds appeared.
Now it's been lived in-covered by weeds.
The person in the hut lives here calmly,
not stuck to inside, outside, or in-between.
Places worldly people live, he doesn't live.
Realms worldly people love, she doesn't love.
Though the hut is small, it includes the entire world.
In ten feet square, an old man illumines forms and their nature.
A Mahayana bodhisattva trusts without doubt.
The middling or lowly can't help wondering;
Will this hut perish or not?
Perishable or not, the original master is present,
not dwelling south or north, east or west.
Firmly based on steadiness, it can't be surpassed.
A shining window below the green pines-
jade palaces or vermilion towers can't compare with it.
Just sitting with head covered all things are at rest.
Thus, this mountain monk doesn't understand at all.
Living here he no longer works to get free.
Who would proudly arrange seats, trying to entice guests?
Turn around the light to shine within, then just return.
The vast inconceivable source can't be faced or turned away from.
Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instruction,
bind grasses to build a hut and don't give up.
Let go of hundreds of years and relax completely.
Open your hands and walk, innocent.
Thousands of words, myriad interpretations
are only to free you from obstructions.
If you want to know the undying person in the hut,
Don't separate from this skin bag here and now.

Jewel Mirror

SONG OF THE JEWEL MIRROR SAMADHI <- (Wikipedia article link)

Jewel Mirror Translation study <- (link to PDF of study) 

The teaching of thusness has been intimately communicated
by buddhas and ancestors.
Now you have it,
so keep it well.
Filling a silver bowl with snow,
hiding a heron in the moonlight -
Taken as similar they're not the same;
when you mix them, you know where they are.
The meaning is not in the words,
yet it responds to the inquiring impulse.
Move and you are trapped;
miss and you fall into doubt and vacillation.
Turning away and touching are both wrong,
for it is like a massive fire.
Just to depict it in literary form
is to stain it with defilement.
It is bright just at midnight,
it doesn't appear at dawn.
It acts as a guide for beings,
its use removes all pains.
Although it is not fabricated,
it is not without speech.
It is like facing a jewel mirror;
form and image behold each other –
You are not it,
in truth it is you.
Like a babe in the world,
in five aspects complete;
It does not go or come,
nor rise nor stand.
"Baba wawa" –
is there anything said or not?
Ultimately it does not apprehend anything
because its speech is not yet correct.
It is like the six lines of the illumination hexagram:
relative and ultimate interact -
Piled up, they make three,
the complete transformation makes five.
It is like the taste of the five-flavored herb,
like a diamond thunderbolt.
Subtly included within the true,
inquiry and response come up together.
Communing with the source, travel the pathways,
embrace the territory and treasure the road.
Respecting this is fortunate;
do not neglect it.
Naturally real yet inconceivable,
it is not within the province of delusion or enlightenment.
With causal conditions, time and season,
quiescently it shines bright.
In its fineness it fits into spacelessness,
in its greatness it is utterly beyond location.
A hairsbreadth's deviation
will fail to accord with the proper attunement.
Now there are sudden and gradual
in which teachings and approaches arise.
Once basic approaches are distinguished,
then there are guiding rules.
But even though the basis is reached and the approach comprehended,
true eternity still flows.
Outwardly still while inwardly moving,
like a tethered colt, a trapped rat -
The ancient sages pitied them
and bestowed upon them the teaching.
According to their delusions,
they called black as white;
When erroneous imaginations cease,
the acquiescent mind realizes itself.
If you want to conform to the ancient way,
please observe the sages of former times.
When about to fulfill the way of buddhahood,
one gazed at a tree for ten eons,
Like a battle-scarred tiger,
like a horse with shanks gone gray.
Because there is the common,
there are jewel pedestals, fine clothing;
Because there is the startlingly different,
there are house cat and cow.
Yi with his archer's skill
could hit a target at a hundred paces.
But when arrow-points meet head on,
what has this to do with the power of skill?
When the wooden man begins to sing,
the stone woman gets up dancing;
It’s not within reach of feeling or discrimination –
how could it admit of consideration in thought?
Ministers serve their lords,
children obey their parents;
Not obeying is not filial
and not serving is no help.
Practice secretly, working within,
like a fool, like an idiot.
Just to continue in this way
is called the host within the host.

Genjokoan

 

Genjokoan

Translated by Robert Aitken and Kazuaki Tanahashi
Revised at San Francisco Zen Center

As all things are buddha-dharma, there is delusion and realization, practice, birth and death, and there are buddhas and sentient beings.

As the myriad things are without an abiding self, there is no delusion, no realization, no buddha, no sentient being, no birth and death.

The buddha way is, basically, leaping clear of the many of the one; thus there are birth and death, delusion and realization, sentient beings and buddhas.

Yet in attachment blossoms fall, and in aversion weeds spread.

To carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. That myriad things come forth and experience themselves is awakening.

Those who have great realization of delusion are buddhas; those who are greatly deluded about realization are sentient beings. Further, there are those who continue realizing beyond realization, who are in delusion throughout delusion.

When buddhas are truly buddhas they do not necessarily notice that they are buddhas. However, they are actualized buddhas, who go on actualizing buddhas.

When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body-and-mind, you grasp things directly. Unlike things and their reflections in the mirror, and unlike the moon and its reflection in the water, when one side is illumined the other side is dark.

To study the buddha way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be actualized by myriad things. When actualized by myriad things, your body and mind as well as the bodies and minds of others drop away. No trace of realization remains, and this no-trace continues endlessly.

When you first seek dharma, you imagine you are far away from its environs. But dharma is already correctly transmitted; you are immediately your original self. When you ride in a boat and watch the shore, you might assume that the shore is moving. But when you keep your eyes closely on the boat, you can see that the boat moves. Similarly, if you examine myriad things with a confused body and mind you might suppose that your mind and nature are permanent. When you practice intimately and return to where you are, it will be clear that nothing at all has unchanging self.

Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet, do not suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past. You should understand that firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, which fully includes past and future and is independent of past and future. Ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash, which fully includes future and past. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return to birth after death.

This being so, it is an established way in buddha-dharma to deny that birth turns into death. Accordingly, birth is understood as no-birth. It is an unshakable teaching in Buddha's discourse that death does not turn into birth. Accordingly, death is understood as no-death.

Birth is an expression complete this moment. Death is an expression complete this moment. They are like winter and spring. You do not call winter the beginning of spring, nor summer the end of spring.

Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water. The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken. Although its light is wide and great, the moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide. The whole moon and the entire sky are reflected in dewdrops on the grass, or even in one drop of water.

Enlightenment does not divide you, just as the moon does not break the water. You cannot hinder enlightenment, just as a drop of water does not hinder the moon in the sky.

The depth of the drop is the height of the moon. Each reflection, however long of short its duration, manifests the vastness of the dewdrop, and realizes the limitlessness of the moonlight in the sky.

When dharma does not fill your whole body and mind, you think it is already sufficient. When dharma fills your body and mind, you understand that something is missing.

For example, when you sail out in a boat to the middle of an ocean where no land is in sight, and view the four directions, the ocean looks circular, and does not look any other way. But the ocean is neither round or square; its features are infinite in variety. It is like a palace. It is like a jewel. It only look circular as far as you can see at that time. All things are like this.

Though there are many features in the dusty world and the world beyond conditions, you see and understand only what your eye of practice can reach. In order to learn the nature of the myriad things, you must know that although they may look round or square, the other features of oceans and mountains are infinite in variety; whole worlds are there. It is so not only around you, but also directly beneath your feet, or in a drop of water.

A fish swims in the ocean, and no matter how far it swims there is no end to the water. A bird flies in the sky, and no matter how far it flies there is no end to the air. However, the fish and the bird have never left their elements. When their activity is large their field is large. When their need is small their field is small. Thus, each of them totally covers its full range, and each of them totally experiences its realm. If the bird leaves the air it will die at once. If the fish leaves the water it will die at once.

Know that water is life and air is life. The bird is life and the fish is life. Life must be the bird and life must be the fish.

It is possible to illustrate this with more analogies. Practice, enlightenment, and people are like this.

Now if a bird or a fish tries to reach the end of its element before moving in it, this bird or this fish will not find its way or its place. When you find your place where you are, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point. When you find you way at this moment, practice occurs, actualizing the fundamental point; for the place, the way, is neither large nor small, neither yours nor others'. The place, the way, has not carried over from the past and it is not merely arising now.

Accordingly, in the practice-enlightenment of the buddha way, meeting one thing is mastering it--doing one practice is practicing completely. Here is the place; here the way unfolds. The boundary of realization is not distinct, for the realization comes forth simultaneously with the mastery of buddha-dharma.

Do not suppose that what you realize becomes your knowledge and is grasped by your consciousness. Although actualized immediately, the inconceivable may not be apparent. Its appearance is beyond your knowledge. Zen master Baoche of Mt. Mayu was fanning himself. A monk approached and said, "Master, the nature of wind is permanent and there is no place it does not reach. When, then, do you fan yourself?"

"Although you understand that the nature of the wind is permanent," Baoche replied, "you do not understand the meaning of its reaching everywhere."

"What is the meaning of its reaching everywhere?" asked the monk again. The master just kept fanning himself. The monk bowed deeply.

The actualization of the buddha-dharma, the vital path of its correct transmission, is like this. If you say that you do not need to fan yourself because the nature of wind is permanent and you can have wind without fanning, you will understand neither permanence nor the nature of wind. The nature of wind is permanent; because of that, the wind of the buddha's house brings for the gold of the earth and makes fragrant the cream of the long river. 

 

Written in mid-autumn, the first year of Tempuku 1233, and given to my lay student Koshu Yo of Kyushu Island. {Revised in} the fourth year of Kencho {I252}.

Fukanzazengi

 Fukanzazengi

The way is originally perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent on practice and realization? The true vehicle is self-sufficient. What need is there for special effort? Indeed, the whole body is free from dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from this very place; what is the use of traveling around to find it? And yet, if there is a hairsbreadth deviation, it is like the gap between heaven and earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion.

Suppose you are confident in your understanding and rich in enlightenment, gaining the wisdom that knows at a glance, attaining the way and clarifying the mind, arousing an aspiration to reach for the heavens. You are playing in the entrance way, but you are still short of the vital path of emancipation.

Consider the Buddha: although he was wise at birth, the traces of his six years of upright sitting can yet be seen. As for Bodhidharma, although he had received the mind-seal, his nine years of facing a wall is celebrated still. If even the ancient sages were like this, how can we today dispense with wholehearted practice?

Therefore, put aside the intellectual habit of investigating words and chasing phrases, and learn to take the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will manifest. If you want such a thing, get to work on it immediately.

For practicing zen, a quiet room is suitable. Eat and drink moderately. Put aside all involvements and suspend all affairs. Do not think “good” or “bad.” Do not judge true or false. Give up the operations of mind, intellect, and consciousness; stop measuring with thoughts, ideas, and views. Have no designs on becoming a buddha. How could that be limited to sitting or lying down?

At your sitting place, spread out a thick square mat and a round cushion. Sit either in the full-lotus or half-lotus position. In the full-lotus position, place your right foot on your left thigh, then your left foot on your right thigh. In the half-lotus, simply place your left foot on your right thigh. Tie your robes loosely and arrange them neatly. Place your right hand on your left leg and your left hand on your right palm, thumb-tips touching lightly. Straighten your body and sit upright, leaning neither left nor right, neither forward nor backward. Align your ears with your shoulders and your nose with your navel. Rest the tip of the tongue against the front of the palate, with teeth and lips closed. Keep your eyes open, and breathe softly through your nose.

Once you have adjusted your posture, take a breath and exhale fully, rock your body right and left, and settle into steady, immovable sitting. Think of not thinking. Not thinking—what kind of thinking is that? Nonthinking. This is the essential art of zazen.

The zazen I speak of is not meditation practice. It is simply the dharma gate of joyful ease, the practice-realization of totally culminated enlightenment. It is the koan realized, traps and snares can never reach it. If you grasp the point, you are like a dragon gaining the water, like a tiger taking to the mountains. For you must know that the true dharma appears of itself, so that from the start dullness and distraction are struck aside.

When you arise from sitting, move slowly and quietly, calmly and deliberately. Do not rise suddenly or abruptly. In surveying the past, we find that transcending the mundane and the sacred, and dying while either sitting or standing, have depended entirely on the power of zazen.

In addition, triggering awakening with a finger, a banner, a needle, or a mallet, and effecting realization with a whisk, a fist, a staff, or a shout, these cannot be understood by discriminative thought, much less can they be known through supernatural power. They must represent conduct beyond seeing and hearing. Are they not a standard prior to knowledge and views?

This being so, intelligence or lack of it is not an issue; make no distinction between the dull and the sharp-witted. If you concentrate your effort single-mindedly, that in itself is wholeheartedly engaging the way. Practice-realization is naturally undefiled. Going forward is, after all, an everyday affair.

In our world and others, in both India and China, all equally hold the buddha-seal. While each lineage expresses its own style, they are all simply devoted to sitting, totally cast in resolute stability. Although there are ten thousand distinctions and a thousand variations, they just wholeheartedly engage the way in zazen. Why leave behind the seat in your own home to wander in vain through the dusty realms of other lands? If you make one misstep you stumble past what is directly in front of you.

You have gained the pivotal opportunity of human form. Do not pass your days and nights in vain. You are taking care of the essential activity of the buddha way. Who would take wasteful delight in the spark from a flint stone? Form and substance are like dew on the grass, the fortunes of life are like a dart of lightning—emptied in an instant, vanished in a flash.

Please, honored followers of zen, long accustomed to groping for the elephant, do not doubt the true dragon. Devote your energies to the way that points directly to the real thing. Revere the one who has gone beyond learning and is free from effort. Accord with the enlightenment of all the buddhas; succeed to the samadhi of all the ancestors. Continue to live in such a way, and you will be such a person. The treasure store will open of itself, and you may enjoy it freely.

Heart Sutra

 Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra

Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, when deeply practicing prajna paramita,
clearly saw that all five aggregates are empty and thus relieved all suffering.

Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from
form. Form itself is emptiness, emptiness itself form. Sensations, perceptions, formations, and consciousness are also like this.

Shariputra, all dharmas are marked by emptiness; they neither arise nor cease, are neither defiled nor pure, neither increase nor decrease.

Therefore, given emptiness, there are no forms, sensations, perceptions, formations, or consciousness; no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, or mind; no sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, or objects of mind; no realm of sight, and so forth, down to no realm of mind consciousness.

There is neither ignorance nor extinction of ignorance, and so forth down to neither old age and death, nor extinction of old age and death; no suffering, no cause, no cessation, no path, no knowledge and no attainment.

With nothing to attain, a Bodhisattva relies on prajna paramita, and thus the mind is without hindrance. Without hindrance, there is no fear. Far beyond all inverted views, one realizes nirvana.

All Buddhas of past, present, and future rely on prajna paramita and thereby attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment.

Therefore, know the prajna paramita as the great miraculous mantra, the great bright mantra, the supreme mantra, the incomp‘rable mantra, which removes all suffering and is true, not false.

Therefore we proclaim the prajna paramita mantra, the mantra that says:
“Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha.”

Sandokai

Sandokai (HARMONIOUS SONG OF DIFFERENCE AND SAMENESS) of Sekito Kisen

The mind of the great sage of India is intimately transmitted from west to east.
While human faculties are sharp or dull,
The Way has no northern or southern ancestors.

The spiritual source shines clear in the light
the branching streams flow on in the dark.
Grasping at things is surely delusion;
according with sameness is still not enlightenment.

All the objects of the senses interact and yet do not.
Interacting brings involvement.
Otherwise, each keeps its place.
Sights vary in quality and form,
sounds differ as pleasing or harsh.
Refined and common speech come together in the dark,
clear and murky phrases are distinguished in the light.

The four elements return to their natures
just as a child turns to its mother;
Fire heats, wind moves,
water wets, earth is solid.
Eye and sights, ear and sounds,
nose and smells, tongue and tastes;
Thus with each and every thing,
depending on these roots, the leaves spread forth.

Trunk and branches share the essence;
revered and common, each has its speech.
In the light there is darkness;
but don't take it as darkness;
In the dark there is light,
but don't see it as light.

Light and darkness oppose one another
like front and back foot in walking.
Each of the myriad things has its merit,
expressed according to function and place.

Phenomena exist; box and lid fit.
principle responds; arrow points meet.
Hearing the words, understand the meaning;
don't set up standards of your own.
If you don't understand the Way right before you,
how will you know the path as you walk?
Progress is not a matter of far or near,
but if you are confused, mountains and rivers block your way.

I respectfully urge you who study the mystery,
do not pass your days and nights in vain.

Metta Prayer

 METTA PRAYER

This is what should be accomplished by the one who is wise, 


May I be well, loving, and peaceful. May all beings be well, loving, and peaceful.

May I be at ease in my body, feeling the ground beneath my seat and feet, letting my back be long and straight, enjoying breath as it rises and falls and rises. 


May I know and be intimate with body mind, whatever its feeling or mood, calm or agitated, tired or energetic, irritated or friendly. 



Breathing in and out, in and out, aware, moment by moment, of the risings and passings. 


May I be attentive and gentle towards my own discomfort and suffering. 


May I be attentive and grateful for my own joy and well-being. 



May I move towards others freely and with openness. 


May I receive others with sympathy and understanding. 


May I move towards the suffering of others with peaceful and attentive confidence. 



May I recall the Bodhisattva of compassion; her 1,000 hands, her instant readiness for action. 

Each hand with an eye in it, the instinctive knowing what to do. 



May I continually cultivate the ground of peace for myself and others and persist, mindful and dedicated to this work, independent of results. 


May I know that my peace and the world's peace are not separate;that our peace in the world is a result of our work for justice. 

May all beings be well, happy, and peaceful. 

Written by Kushin Seisho Maylie Scott

Metta Sutta

 Metta Sutta

This is what should be accomplished by the one who is wise,
Who seeks the good and has obtained peace:

May I be strenuous, upright and sincere,
Without pride, easily contented and joyous.

May I not be submerged by the things of the world.
May I not take upon myself the burden of riches.

May my senses be controlled.
May I be wise but not puffed up,
And may I not desire great possessions, even for my family.

May I do nothing that is mean or that the wise would reprove.
May all beings be happy.
May they be joyous and live in safety.
All living beings, whether weak or strong,
In high or middle or low realms of existence,
Small or great, visible or invisible, near or far,
Born or to be born, may all beings be happy.

May I not deceive another, nor despise any being in any state;
May I not by anger or hatred wish harm to another.
Even as a mother at the risk of her life,
Watches over and protects her only child,
So with a boundless mind may I cherish all living things,
Suffusing love over the entire world –
Above, below, and all around, without limit;
So may I cultivate an infinite good will toward the whole world.

Standing or walking, sitting or lying down,
During all my waking hours,
May I practice the way with gratitude.

Not holding to fixed views,
Endowed with insight,
Freed from sense appetites,
One who achieves the way will be free
From the duality of birth and death.

Meal Verse

Meal Verse

We bow in gratitude to the providers of this food:
Earth, air, fire, water, People, tools, plants, animals,
Turned in the wheel of living and dying
Desiring the natural order of mind
Let us join our hearts with the one heart of the world
Realizing the compassionate path of awakening
With everyone.

Robe Chant

Robe Chant

Great Robe of Liberation
Field Far Beyond Form and Emptiness
Wearing the Tathagata's Teaching
Saving all Beings

Dai Sai Gedap-Puku
Muso Fuku Den E
Hi Bu Nyorai Kyo
Ko Do Shoshu Jo

Great Robe of Liberation
Field Far Beyond Form and Emptiness
Wearing the Tathagata's Teaching
Saving all Beings