‘Emptiness is without characteristics. Illumination has no emotional afflictions. With piercing, quietly profound radiance, it mysteriously eliminates all disgrace. Thus one can know oneself; thus the self is completed. We all have the clear, wondrously bright field from the beginning. Many lifetimes of misunderstanding come only from distrust, hindrance, and screens of confusion that we … More Hongzhi
‘Although empty of desires, with deliberations cut off, transcendent comprehension is not all sealed up. Perfect bright understanding is carefree amid ten thousand images and cannot be confused. Within each dust mote is vast abundance. ‘ (Cultivating the Empty Field) Sometimes you need something like this to start the week.
‘People of the way journey through the world responding to conditions, carefree and without restraint. Like clouds finally raining, like moonlight following the current, like orchids growing in shade, like spring arising in everything, they act without mind, they respond with certainty.’ (Cultivating the Empty Field) Cathering brought some Hongzhi into yesterday’s talk to the … More Hongzhi
‘Thoroughly observing each thing with the whole eye is a patch-robed monk’s spontaneous conduct.’ (Cultivating the Empty Field) As I believe is often said over here, 24/7, 365.
‘Your body sits silently; your mind quiescent, unmoving. Your mouth is so still that moss grows around it. Grass sprouts from your tongue. Do this without cease, cleansing the mind until it gains the clarity of an autumn pool, bright as the moon illuminating the evening sky.’ (quoted in The Poetry of Enlightenment) I took this … More Hongzhi
The round pearl has no hollows, The great raw gem isn’t polished. What is esteemed by people of the Way is having no edges. Removing the road of agreement, senses and matter are empty: The free body, resting on nothing, stands out unique and alive. (The Book of Serenity)
‘In clarity the wonder exists, with spiritual energy shining on its own. It cannot be grasped, and so cannot be called being. It cannot be rubbed away and so cannot be called nonbeing. Beyond the mind of deliberation and discussion, depart from the realms of the shadowy images. Emptying one’s sense of self-existence is wondrous. … More Hongzhi
‘Thoroughly observing each thing with the whole eye is a patch-robed monk’s spontaneous conduct.’ (Cultivating the Empty Field)
The true person of no rank is a slab of red meat. Great thousands of realms of sand manifest on the tip of a hair. Obviously it is a matter of not borrowing from someone else’s house. This is how all achievement functions.
‘Traveling the world, meeting conditions, the self joyfully enters samadhi in all delusions and accepts its function, which is to empty out the self so as not to be full of itself.’ (Cultivating the Empty Field) The footnote to this sentence points to Hongzhi’s expression pre-figuring Dogen’s exposition of jijuyu zanmai, and observes that ‘the Chinese compound that means … More Hongzhi
Shundo David Haye 