https://open.spotify.com/episode/4YTUXFNjH7UTfUUubCm6Jv?si=t9XC3WjjQmi8wX0JMhyH2w
All beings are primarily Buddhas. It is like water and ice: there is no ice apart from water. There are no Buddhas apart from beings.
Not knowing how close the truth is to them, beings seek it afar. What a pity. They are like those, who, being in the midst of water, cry out for water, feeling thirst.
They are like the son of the rich man, who, wandering away from his father, goes astray among the poor. It is all due to their ignorance that beings transmigrate in the darkness of the six paths of existence. When they wander from darkness to darkness, how can they ever be free from birth and death?
When you understand that form is the form of the formless, your coming and going takes place nowhere else but where you are.
When you understand that thought is the thought of the thoughtless, your singing and dancing is no other than the voice of The Dharma.
How boundless is the sky of Samadhi? How refreshingly bright is the moon of the four-fold wisdom? Being so, is there anything you lack? As the absolute presents itself before you, the place where you stand is the land of the lotus. And your person, the body of the Buddha.
You no sooner attain the great void, than body and mind are lost together, heaven and hell are straw, the Buddha realm, pandemonium, shambles. Listen, a nightengale strains her voice, serenading the snow. Look, a tortoise wearing a sword climbs the lampstand. Should you desire the great tranquility, prepare to sweat white beads.
The monkey is reaching for the moon in the water, until death overtakes him, he’ll never give up. If he’d let go of the branch and disappear in the deep pool, the whole world would shine with dazzling pureness.
Past, present, future — unattainable. Yet clear as the moatless sky. Late at night the stool is cold as iron, but the moonlit window smells of plum.
At the bottom of great doubt lies great awakening. If you doubt fully, you will awaken fully. If you forget yourself, you become the universe. Meditation in the midst of activity is a thousand-times superior to meditation in stillness. What is this true meditation? It is to make everything: coughing, swallowing, waving the arms, motion, stillness, words, action, the evil and the good, prosperity and shame, gain and loss, right and wrong — into one single koan.
At this moment, is there anything lacking? Nirvana is right here now, before our eyes. How bright and transparent the moonlight of wisdom. From the sea of effortlessness, let your great uncaused compassion shine forth. You know the sound of two hands clapping, tell me: what is the sound of one hand?
禅宗