The Mind of Absolute Trust

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Seng-ts'an

The great way isn’t difficult for those who are unattached to their preferences.

Let go of longing and aversion, and everything will be perfectly clear.

When you cling to a hairbreadth of distinction, heaven and earth are set apart.

If you want to realize the truth, don’t be for or against.

The struggle between good and evil is the primal disease of the mind.

Not grasping the deeper meaning, you just trouble your minds serenity.

As vast as infinite space, it is perfect and lacks nothing.

But because you select and reject, you can’t perceive its true nature.

Don’t get entangled in the world; don’t lose yourself in emptiness.

Be at peace in the oneness of things, and all errors will disappear by themselves.

If you don’t live the Tao, you fall into assertion or denial.

Asserting that the world is real, you are blind to its deeper reality;

denying that the world is real, you are blind to the selflessness of all things.

The more you think about these matters, the farther you are from the truth.

Step aside from all thinking, and there is nowhere you can’t go.

Returning to the root, you find the meaning;

chasing appearances, you lose their source.

At the moment of profound insight, you transcend both appearance and emptiness.

Don’t keep searching for the truth; just let go of your opinions.

For the mind in harmony with the Tao, all selfishness disappears.

With not even a trace of self-doubt, you can trust the universe completely.

All at once you are free, with nothing left to hold on to.

All is empty, brilliant, perfect in its own being.

In the world of things as they are, there is no self, no non self.

If you want to describe its essence, the best you can say is “Not-two.”

In this “Not-two”, nothing is separate, and nothing in the world is excluded.

The enlightened of all times and places have entered into this truth.

In it there is no gain or loss; one instant is ten thousand years.

There is no here, no there; infinity is right before your eyes.

The tiny is as large as the vast when objective boundaries have vanished;

the vast is as small as the tiny when you don’t have external limits.

Being is an aspect of non-being; non-being is no different from being.

Until you understand this truth, you won’t see anything clearly.

One is all; all are one. When you realize this, what reason for holiness or wisdom?

The mind of absolute trust is beyond all thought, all striving,

is perfectly at peace, for in it there is no yesterday, no today, no tomorrow.

Seng-ts’an

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Let all our songs gather together

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BYU Choirs, Jack Kornfield, Rabindranath Tagore, Ēriks Ešenvalds

Rabindranath Tagore‘s poem Salutation

set in music by Ēriks Ešenvalds

sung by the BYU Singers

In one salutation to thee, my God,
let all my senses spread out and touch this world at thy feet.

Like a rain-cloud of July
hung low with its burden of unshed showers
let all my mind bend down at thy door in one salutation to thee.

Let all my songs gather together their diverse strains into a single current
and flow to a sea of silence in one salutation to thee.

Like a flock of homesick cranes flying night and day
back to their mountain nests
let all my life take its voyage to its eternal home
in one salutation to thee.

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Finden aber… / But finding…

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Buddha, Hermann Hesse

„Wenn jemand sucht”, sagte Siddhartha, „dann geschieht es leicht, dass sein Auge nur noch das Ding sieht, das er sucht, dass er nichts zu finden, nichts in sich einzulassen vermag, weil er nur immer an das Gesuchte denkt, weil er ein Ziel hat, weil er vom Ziel besessen ist. Suchen heisst: ein Ziel haben. Finden aber heisst: frei sein, offen stehen, kein Ziel haben. Du, Ehrwürdiger, bist vielleicht in der Tat ein Sucher, denn, deinem Ziel nachstrebend, siehst du manches nicht, was nah vor deinen Augen steht.”

“When someone is seeking,” said Siddartha, “it happens quite easily that his eye recognizes only but the thing that he is seeking, that he is unable to find anything, unable to admit anything into his consciousness, because he is only thinking of the thing he is seeking, because he has a goal, because he is obsessed with his goal. Seeking means: to have a goal. But finding means: to be free, to be receptive, to have no goal. You, O worthy one, are perhaps indeed a seeker, for in striving towards your goal, you do not see many things that are up close in front of your eyes.”

Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
Quote translation by Leon Hieros

Always Beautiful

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Joseph Joubert