Zen
Poems
Selected Quotations
II
Earth, mountains, rivers - hidden in this nothingness.
In this nothingness - earth, mountains, rivers revealed.
Spring flowers, winter snows:
There's no being or non-being, nor denial itself.
- Saisho (? - 1506)
Zen Poetry: Let the
Spring Breeze Enter, p.32
Translated by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto
The true man of no rank -
What a piece of dry crap he is!
- Hung-Chih, 1145
Awakening in the
Stream, p. 181
A special transmission outside the scriptures;
No dependence upon words and letters;
Direct pointing at the soul of man:
Seeing into one's nature and the attainment of Buddhahood.
-
Bodhi-Dharma, c 570
Found in Zen Buddhism,
1956, p. 61
By D. T. Suzuki
Buddha preached in the twelve divisions,
each
division full of purest truth.
East
wind -- rain comes in the night,
making all the forest fresh and new.
No
sutra that does not save the living,
no
branch in the forest not visited by spring.
Learn
to understand the meaning in them,
don't
try to decide which is "valid," which is not.
- Ryokan, 1758-1851
Ryokan: Zen Monk - Poet of Japan, 1977, p. 103
Translated by Burton Watson
To what shall
I liken the world?
Moonlight, reflected
In dewdrops.
Shaken from a crane's bill.
-
Dogen, 1200 - 1253
The
Zen Poetry of Dogen
Translated by Steven Heine
The world? Moonlit
Drops shaken
From the crane's bill.
- Dogen
Zen
Poems of China and Japan, p. 81
Translated by Lucien Stryk
Zen Poetry: Selected Quotations I
The thief
Left it behind -
The
moon at the window.
- Ryokan, 1758-1831
Dewdrops on a Lotus
Leaf,
Translated by John Stevens
In ten directions everywhere, throughout the sea of lands,
Every hair-tip encompasses oceans of past, present and future.
So, too, there is a sea of Buddhas, a sea of Buddha lands;
Pervading them all, I cultivate for seas of endless time.
- The Flower Adornment
Sutra
Translated by The Buddhist Text Translation Society
Zen Poetry: Links, Bibliography and Resources
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 enlightened by the ten
thousand dharmas.
To be enlightened by the ten thousand dharmas is
to free
one's body and
mind and those of others.
No trace of enlightenment remains, and this
traceless
enlightenment is
continued forever.
- Dogen, 1200 - 1253
Genjokoan: Enlightenment as Everyday Life
Translated by Hakuyu Taizan Maezumi
Found in Entering the Stream,
1993, p. 206
Edited by Samuel Bercholz and Sherab Chodzin Kohn
Zen Poetry: Selected Quotations I
But I say unto you,
Take this staff just as a staff;
Movement is movement;
Sitting is sitting,
but don't wobble
under any circumstances!
My staff has turned into a dragon
and swallowed up the whole world.
Where are the poor mountains and rivers and great earth now?
Vasubandhu happened to transform himself
Into a staff of chestnut wood, and,
Striking the earth once,
All the innumerable Buddhas were released
from their entangling words.
-
Yun-men Wen-yen, (Ummon), 864-949
Sermons
Translated by R. H. Blyth
Found in Zen and
Zen Classics: Selections, p. 252
Edited by Frederick Franck
If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a
cloud floating in this
sheet of paper. Without a cloud there will be no water; without water,
the trees cannot grow; and without trees, you cannot make paper. So
the cloud is in here. The existence of this page is dependent upon the
existence of a cloud. Paper and cloud are so close.
- Thich Nhat Hahn
Engaged
Buddhism
Found in Entering the Stream,
1993, p. 248
Edited by Samuel Bercholz and Sherab Chodzin Kohn
Spirituality - Meditations Along a Garden Path
All that's visible springs from causes intimate to you.
While walking, sitting, lying down, the body itself is complete truth.
If someone asks the inner meaning of this:
"Inside the treasury of the dharma eye a single grain of dust."
- Dogen, 1200 - 1253
Moon in a Dewdrop,
p. 218
Translated by Kazuaki Tanahashi
Lucien Stryk: My final question concerns something which interests
us both
so much, Zen Poetry. Would you agree that enlightenment and death poems
of the masters, Chinese and Japanese, are the most important expressions in
the literature of Zen?
Roshi Gempo Nakamura: I would indeed. Especially the death poems, which
give the very essence of life, a brush of wind, and are often pondered like
koans by students of Zen. We have always learnt from them; they are
infinitely precious. You are right to be interested in them.
-
Zen
Poetry: Let the Spring Breeze Enter, 1995, p. xxi
Translated by and edited by Lucien Stryk and Takashi Ikemoto
Zen Poems: Links, Bibliography, Resources, Notes
Only the idea of self remains
Floating on a sea of cells;
Only heartbeats short of eternity
In breath after breath we dwell.
- Mike Garofalo, Above the Fog
Nothing remains
Of the house that I was born in--
Fireflies.
- Santoka, 1882-1940
Mountain Tasting:
Zen Haiku by Santoka Taneda, 1980, p.48
Translated by John Stevens
However looked at,
it's a world
to be loathed --
but as long as you live here
I'm drawn to it!
- Saigyo, 1118 - 1190
Saigyo: Poems of a Mountain Home, p. 179
Translated by Burton Watson
The secret of the receptive
Must be sought in stillness;
Within stillness there remains
The potential for action.
If you force empty sitting,
Holding dead images in mind,
The tiger runs, the dragon flees --
How can the elixir be given?
- Sun Bu-er, Chinese Zen-Taoist
Woman
The Perfect Way knows no difficulties
Except that it refuses to make preferences;
Only when freed from hate and love,
It reveals itself fully and without disguise;
A tenth of an inch's difference,
And heaven and earth are set apart;
If you wish to see it before your own eyes,
Have no fixed thoughts either for or against it.
- On
Believing in Mind, Sosan Canchi Zenji
Cloud Hands: Taijiquan and Qigong
When the mind is at peace,
the world too is at peace.
Nothing real, nothing absent.
Not holding on to reality,
not getting stuck in the void,
you are neither holy or wise, just
an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.
- Layman Pang-yun
(740-808)
The Enlightened
Heart, Edited by Stephen Mitchell, p. 34
If you ignore its profundity,
you can never practice stillness.
Like the Great Void, it is Perfect and lacks nothing,
nor has any excess.
If you discriminate,
you will miss its suchness.
Cling not to external causes,
nor stay in the Void.
Differentiation ceases if you can be impartial.
Stillness comes when all disturbances are stopped,
clinging to stillness is also a mistake.
If you cling to opposites,
how will you know the One?
- Third Patriarch of Zen
Have Faith in
Your Mind
No tranquilization, No disturbance,
No sitting, No meditation ...
This is the Tathagata's Dhyana.
The five Skandhas are not realities;
The six object of sense are by nature empty.
It is neither quiet nor illuminating;
It is neither real nor empty;
It does not abide in the Middle Way;
It is not-doing,
It is no-effect-producing;
Yet, functioning with the utmost freedom:
the Buddha-nature is all inclusive.
- Yung, a student of Hui-neng (Ts'ao-ch'i), the Sixth
Patriarch of Zen
Zen Buddhism: Selected Writings of D. T. Suzuki, p. 169.
Emptiness in Full Bloom: Flowers in the Sky (Kuge)
Zen Poetry: Selected Quotations
Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
Poetry Notebook III of Mike Garofalo
Zen Poetry: Selected Quotations II
Available on the Net since January, 2000.
April 8, 2005
Cloud Hands: Tai Chi Chuan and Qi Gong