Shundo David Haye – Zen Priest

‘The winds [of discrimination] cannot enter this place of knowing. Thus, people, when you penetrate it thoroughly and fully, you will realize that you have possessed it since time immemorial and that it has not been absent for a second. Even though you seek it through thought, that (iself) is the Self and nothing else. Even reflecting inwardly on yourself is not discrimination; it is Self and not something new. Using eyes, ears, and mouth, opening your hand and moving your feet — these are all Self. Fundamentally, it is not grasped with hands or seen by the eyes. Therefore, it cannot be discussed in terms of sounds and forms, and it is not approached with ears and eyes.

When you see it fully, you will doubtlessly know that there is an “I” and that there is a Self. If you want to know this place, when you toss out right and wrong for the first time and do not depend on others or get involved with them, this Mind shines naturally with a brightness brighter than the sun and moon. Its purity is purer than frost and snow. Thus, it is not blind, unaware of right and wrong. This Self is spontaneously manifested pure and bright.

People, do not think that there is no one apart from speech, silence, move-ment, and stillness, or no one unconnected with skin, flesh, bones, and mar-row. Also, do not stand alone, immobile, without a thought of self and others, without any mind at all, unconnected with things, like a stump, and think that having no mind is like grass or trees. How could the study of the Buddha Way resemble grass and trees? The view that fundamentally there is no self or other and that not a single thing exists is the same as the nihilism of non-Buddhists and the view of nothingness.’ (Denkoroku)