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Nils - Happy 65th
65 Gems From the True
Dharma-Eye Treaurury
1.
When this principle is preached and
realized, it is said that “matter is just the immaterial” and the immaterial is
just matter. Matter is matter, the immaterial is the immaterial. They are
hundreds of things, and myriad phenomena.
Shōbōgenzō Maka-hannya-haramitsu
2.
And though it is like this, it is only
that flowers, while loved, fall; and weeds while hated, flourish.
Shōbōgenzō Genjō-kōan
3. Life is an instantaneous situation, and death is also an
instantaneous situation.
Shōbōgenzō Genjō-kōan
4. Realization is the state of ambiguity itself.
Shōbōgenzō Genjō-kōan
5.
The sun’s face appears together with
the sun’s face, and the moon’s face appears together with the moon’s face.
Shōbōgenzō Ikka-no-myōju
6.
When stupid people hear talk of “mind here
and now is buddha,” they interpret that ordinary beings’ intellect and sense
perception, which have never established the bodhi-mind, are just
buddha.
Shōbōgenzō Soku-shin-ze-butsu
7.
The Dharma is rarely met.
Shōbōgenzō Raihai-tokuzui
8.
This being so, we should hope that
even trees and stones might preach to us, and we should request that even
fields and villages might preach to us. We should question outdoor pillars, and
we should investigate even fences and walls.
Shōbōgenzō Raihai-tokuzui
9.
A monk asks Zen Master Chōsha
[Kei]shin, “How can we make mountains, rivers, and the earth belong to
ourselves?” The master says, “How can we make ourselves belong to mountains,
rivers, and the earth?” This says that ourselves are naturally ourselves, and
even though ourselves are mountains, rivers, and the earth, we should never be
restricted by belonging.
Shōbōgenzō Keisei-sanshiki
10.
Right and wrong are time; time is not
right or wrong. Right and wrong are the Dharma; the Dharma is not right or
wrong.
Shōbōgenzō Shoaku-makusa
11.
We put our self in order, and see [the
resulting state] as the whole universe.
Shōbōgenzō Uji
12.
Let us pause to reflect whether or not
any of the whole of existence or any of the whole universe has leaked away from
the present moment of time.
Shōbōgenzō Uji
13.
The mountains and water of the present
are the realization of the words of eternal buddhas.
Shōbōgenzō Sansuigyō
14.
At the present time in the great
kingdom of Song, there is a group of unreliable fellows who have now formed
such a crowd that they cannot be beaten by a few real [people].
Shōbōgenzō Sansuigyō
15.
The Buddha says, “All dharmas
are ultimately liberated; they are without an abode.” Remember, although they
are in the state of liberation, without any bonds, all dharmas are
abiding in place.
Shōbōgenzō Sansuigyō
16.
The present is the reality85 as it is
of the real form, the real nature, the real body, the real energy, the real
causes, and the real effects of the Flower of Dharma turning.
Shōbōgenzō Hokke-ten-hokke
17.
This being so, the present is the
“form as it is” of the state of experience, and even “alarm, doubt, and fear”
are nothing other than reality as it is.
Shōbōgenzō Hokke-ten-hokke
18.
When we carefully consider this story
of the meeting between the old woman and Tokusan, Tokusan’s lack of clarity in
the past is audible [even] now.
Shōbōgenzō Shin-fukatoku
19.
A foreigner appears, a foreigner is
reflected—one hundred and eight thousand of them. A Chinese person appears, a
Chinese person is reflected—for a moment and for ten thousand years. The past
appears, the past is reflected; the present appears, the present is reflected;
a buddha appears, a buddha is reflected; a patriarch appears, a patriarch is
reflected.
Shōbōgenzō Kokyō
20.
In the house of the Buddhist
patriarchs, some experience it directly and some do not experience it directly,
but reading sutras and requesting the benefit [of the teaching] are the common
tools of everyday life.
Shōbōgenzō Kankin
21.
This sitting in zazen is not learning
Zen concentration.
Fukanzazengi
22.
The whole universe is utterly without
objective molecules: here and now there is no second person at all.
Shōbōgenzō Busshō
23.
The buddha-nature is always total
existence, for total existence is the buddha-nature.
Shōbōgenzō Busshō
24.
If you want to know this “buddha-nature,”
remember, “causes and circumstances as real time” are just it.
Shōbōgenzō Busshō
25.
The Fifth Patriarch says, “The
buddha-nature is emptiness [ku; shunyata], so we call it being without”[mu]. This clearly expresses that “emptiness” is not
nonexistence.
Shōbōgenzō Busshō
(Note: Dogen’s comment, “This clearly
expresses that ‘emptiness’ is not nonexistence”, reads, in the original, “kū
wa mu ni ara zu”, thus, “kū
is not mu,” or “śūnyatā is not nonexistence.” Nishijima &
Cross)
26.
This emptiness is beyond the emptiness
of “matter is just emptiness.” [At the same time,] “matter is just emptiness”
describes neither matter being forcibly made into emptiness nor emptiness being
divided up to produce matter. It may describe emptiness in which emptiness is
just emptiness. “Emptiness in which emptiness is just emptiness” describes “one
stone in space.”
Shōbōgenzō Busshō
27.
To affirm [the buddha-nature] as the
miscellaneous circumstances manifest before us is “to command the style of
behavior that is free of hindrances.”
Shōbōgenzō Busshō
28.
A monk asks Great Master Shinsai of
Jōshū, “Does even a dog have the buddha-nature or not?”
Shōbōgenzō Busshō
29.
We should clarify the meaning of this
question.
Shōbōgenzō Busshō
30.
At this dharma [reality] has
“already arrived.” At that dharma [reality] has “already arrived.”
Shōbōgenzō Gyōbutsu-yuigi
31.
[To research] this truth of
moment-by-moment utter entrustment, we must research the mind. In the
mountain-still state of such research, we discern and understand that ten
thousand efforts are [each] the mind being evident, and the triple world is
just that which is greatly removed from the mind. This discernment and
understanding, while also of the myriad real dharmas, activate the
homeland of the self. They make immediate and concrete the vigorous state of
the human being in question.
Shōbōgenzō Gyōbutsu-yuigi
32.
If I put it in words, “expounding the
mind and expounding the nature” is the pivotal essence of the Seven Buddhas and
the ancestral masters.
Shōbōgenzō Sesshin-sesshō
33.
In conclusion, we should know that in
the Buddha’s truth there are inevitably Buddhist sutras; we should learn in
practice, as the mountains and the oceans, their universal text and their profound
meaning; and we should make them our standard for pursuing the truth.
Shōbōgenzō Bukkyō
34.
Because they are too stupid to
understand the meaning of the Buddhist sutras for themselves, they randomly
insult the Buddhist sutras and neglect to practice and learn them. We should
call them flotsam in the stream of non-Buddhism.
Shōbōgenzō Kenbutsu
35.
We should realize in experience that
every single thing is truly “something.” “Something” is not open to doubt: “it
comes like this.”
Shōbōgenzō Inmo
36.
When we have the will to venerate the
ancients, the ancient sutras come to the present and manifest themselves before
us.
Shōbōgenzō Gyōji
37.
In the great truth of the
Buddha-Dharma, the sutras of the great thousandfold [world] are present in an
atom, and countless buddhas are present in an atom. Each weed and each tree are
a body-mind. Because the myriad dharmas are beyond appearance, even the
undivided mind is beyond appearance. And because all dharmas are real
form, every atom is real form. Thus, one undivided mind is all dharmas,
and all dharmas are one undivided mind, which is the whole body.
Shōbōgenzō Hotsu-mujōshin
38.
Just at this moment, how is it? We
might say, “it is completely beyond necessity.”
Shōbōgenzō Bukkyo
39.
The mystical power and wondrous
function,
Carrying water and lugging firewood.
40.
We must investigate this truth
thoroughly.
Shōbōgenzō Jinzū
41.
The time that is just the moment of
this [realization] is now.
Shōbōgenzō Daigo
42.
The question “What is it like at the
time when a person in the state of great realization returns to delusion?”
truly asks a question that deserves to be asked.
Shōbōgenzō Daigo
43.
For example, while I see the “I” of
yesterday as myself, yesterday I called [the “I” of] today a second person. We
do not say that present realization was not there yesterday; neither has it
begun now. We should grasp it in experience like this.
Shōbōgenzō Daigo
44.
Nangaku says, “When you are
[practicing] sitting buddha, that is just killing buddha.” This says further
that when we are investigating sitting buddha, the virtue of killing buddha is
present. The very moment of sitting buddha is the killing of “buddha.” If we
want to explore the good features and the brightness of killing buddha, they are
always present in sitting buddha. The word “to kill” is as [used by] the common
person, but we should not blindly equate [its usage here] with that of the
common person. Further, we should investigate the state in which sitting buddha
is killing buddha, [asking:] “What forms and grades does it have?” Taking up
[the fact] that, among the virtues of buddha, killing buddha is already
present, we should learn in practice whether we ourselves are killing a person
or not yet killing a person.
Shōbōgenzō Zazenshin
45.
Those who have not illuminated each dharma,
dharma by dharma, cannot be called clear eyed, and they are not the
attainment of the truth; how could they be Buddhist patriarchs of the eternal
past and present?
Shōbōgenzō Zazenshin
46.
The present words of master and
disciple we should without fail examine in detail.
Shōbōgenzō Butsu-kōjō-no-ji
47.
We ourselves are tools that it
possesses within this universe in ten directions.
Shōbōgenzō Inmo
48.
How do we know that it exists? We know
it is so because the body and the mind both appear in the universe, yet neither
is ourself.
Shōbōgenzō Inmo
49.
The body, already, is not “I.” Its
life moves on through days and months, and we cannot stop it even for an
instant.
Shōbōgenzō Inmo
50.
Do not pass time in vain.
Shōbōgenzō Gyōji
51.
The integrated form that is “composed”
of “real dharmas,” is “this body.”
Shōbōgenzō Kai-in-zanmai
52.
So is there any Buddhist patriarch who
is other than the hundred weeds? And how could the hundred weeds be other than
“I” and “you”?
Shōbōgenzō Juki
53.
Without being objective things, [cedar
trees] cannot be cedar trees.
Shōbōgenzō Hakujushi
54.
To see and hear the brightness of the
self is proof of having directly encountered buddha; it is proof of having met
buddha.
Shōbōgenzō Kōmyō
55.
The Buddha’s truth is such that if we
intend not to practice the truth we cannot attain it, and if we intend not to
learn [the truth] it becomes more and more distant.
Shōbōgenzō Shinjin-gakudō
56.
This I preach as a dream in a dream.
Shōbōgenzō Muchū-setsumu
57.
Because it is the realization of
experience in experience, it is “the preaching of the dream-state in the
dream-state.”
Shōbōgenzō Muchū-setsumu
58.
The buddhas and the patriarchs are the
expression of the truth.
Shōbōgenzō Dōtoku
59.
Buddhas are the state of experience
itself, and so things are the state of experience itself.
Shōbōgenzō Gabyō
60.
So life is what I am making it, and I
am what life is making me.
Shōbōgenzō Zenki
61.
What has been described like this is
that life is the self, and the self is life.
Shōbōgenzō Zenki
62.
So although the moon was there last
night, tonight’s moon is not yesterday’s moon.
Shōbōgenzō Tsuki
63.
Remember that space is a thing.
Shōbōgenzō Kūge
64.
The moment and causes-and-conditions of
the present, and the lands-of-dust and space of the present, are both nothing
other than the eternal mind.
Shōbōgenzō Kobusshin
65.
How much less could they know that the
succession of the complicated continues by means of the complicated? Few have
known that the succession of the Dharma is the complicated itself.
Shōbōgenzō Kattō
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