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Verses on the Trusting Mind

the Third Chinese Ancestor Sengcan
Xinxinming by Chan Master Sengcan (d. 606), Third Chinese Ancestor
translated by Richard B. Clarke, edited by Luminous Owl

The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When longing and aversion are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinion for or against. The struggle of likes and dislikes is the disease of the mind.

When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail. The Way is perfect like vast space, where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess. Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject that we do not see the true nature of things. Live neither in the entanglements of things, nor passively in emptiness. Be serene without striving activity in the oneness of things, and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves. When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity, your very effort fills you with activity. As long as you remain in one extreme or the other, you will never know oneness. Those who do not live in the single Way fail in both activity and passivity, assertion and denial.

To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality. The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth. Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

To return to the root is to find the meaning, but to pursue appearances is to miss the source. At the moment of turning the light of awareness around, there is going beyond appearance and emptiness. The changes that appear to occur in the empty world we call real only because of our ignorance. Do not search for the truth; only cease to hold opinions. Do not remain in dualistic constructs; avoid such pursuits carefully. If there is a trace of this and that, right and wrong, the mind-essence will be lost in confusion. Although all dualities come from the one, do not be attached even to this one. When the mind remains undisturbed in the Way, nothing in the world can offend, and when a thing can no longer offend it ceases to exist in the old way. When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist.

When thought objects vanish, the thinking-subject vanishes, as when the mind vanishes, objects vanish. Things are objects because of the subject; the mind is such because of things. Understand the relativity of these two and the basic reality, the unity of emptiness. In this emptiness, the two are indistinguishable and each contains in itself the whole world. If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.

To live in the Great Way is neither easy nor difficult, but those with limited views are fearful and irresolute: the faster they hurry, the slower they go, and clinging cannot be limited: even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray. Just let things be in their own way and there will be neither coming nor going. Accept the nature of things, and you will walk freely and undisturbed. When thought is in bondage the truth is hidden, for everything is murky and unclear, and the burdensome practice of judging brings annoyance and weariness. What benefit can be derived from distinctions and separations? If you wish to move in the one Way, do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas. Indeed, to accept them fully is identical with true enlightenment. The wise man strives for no goals but the foolish man fetters himself. There is one truth, not many; distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant. To seek mind with the discriminating mind is the greatest of all mistakes.

Rest and unrest derive from illusion; with enlightenment there is no liking and disliking. All dualities come from ignorant inference. They are like dreams or flowers in the air; the foolish try to grasp them. Gain and loss, right and wrong: such thoughts must finally be abolished at once. If the eye never sleeps, all dreams will naturally cease. If the mind makes no discriminations, the ten thousand things are as they are, of single essence. To understand the mystery of this one-essence is to be released from all entanglements. When all things are seen equally the timeless self-essence is reached. No comparisons or analogies are possible in this groundless, relationless realm.

Consider movement stationary and the stationary in motion, and both the state of movement and the state of rest disappear. When such dualities cease to exist, oneness itself cannot exist. To this ultimate finality no law or description applies. For the unified mind in accord with the Way, all self-centered striving ceases. Doubts utterly vanish and life in true confidence is possible. With a single stroke we are freed from bondage; nothing clings to us and we hold nothing. All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind's power. Here thought, feeling, knowledge, and imagination are of no value.

In this world of suchness there is neither self nor other-than-self. To come directly into harmony with this reality just simply say when doubts arise, "nondual." In this nonduality nothing is separate, nothing is excluded. No matter when or where, enlightenment means entering this truth. And this truth is beyond increase or decrease in time or space; in it a single thought is ten-thousand years.

Emptiness here, Emptiness there, but the infinite universe stands always before our eyes. Infinitely large and infinitely small; no difference, for definitions have vanished and no boundaries are seen. So too with being and non-being. Don't waste time in doubts and arguments that have nothing to do with this. One is all, all is one, intermingling, without distinction. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection. To live in this trust is the road to non-duality, because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.

Words! The Way is beyond language, for in it there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, no today.

 
     
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