World Philosophical Heritage

Wisdom and teachings of
Zen (Chan)

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W hen mortals are alive, they worry about death. When they're full, they worry about hunger. Theirs is the Great Uncertainty. But sages don't consider the past. And they don't worry about the future. Nor do they cling to the present. And from moment to moment they follow the Way.

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quote 3255 | Bodhidharma
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987, p. 75

I f, as in a dream, you see a light brighter than the sun, your remaining attachments will suddenly come to an end and the nature of reality will be revealed. Such an occurrence serves as the basis for enlightenment. But this is something only you know. You can't explain it to others.

Or if, while you're walking, standing, sitting, or lying in a quiet grove, you see a light, regardless of whether it's bright or dim, don't tell others and don't focus on it. It's the light of your own nature.

Of if, while you're walking, standing, sitting, or lying in the stillness and darkness of night, everything appears as though in daylight, don't be startled. It's your own mind about to reveal itself.

Or if, while you're dreaming at night, you see the moon and stars in all their clarity, it means the workings of your mind are about to end. But don't tell others.

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quote 3254 | Bodhidharma
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987, p. 33

T o find a buddha all you have to do is see your nature. Your nature is the buddha. And the buddha is the person who's free: free of plans, free of cares. If you don't see your nature and run around all day looking somewhere else, you'll never find a buddha. The truth is, there's nothing to find. But to reach such an understanding you need a teacher and you need to struggle to make yourself understand…

If you don't find a teacher soon, you'll live this life in vain. It's true, you have the buddha-nature. But without the help of a teacher you'll never know it. Only one person in a million becomes enlightened without a teacher's help.

If, though, by the conjunction of conditions, someone understands what the Buddha meant, that person doesn't need a teacher. Such a person has a natural awareness superior to anything taught. But unless you're so blessed, study hard, and by means of instruction you'll understand.

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quote 3253 | Bodhidharma
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987, pp. 13-15

T o give up yourself without regret is the greatest charity.

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quote 3252 | Bodhidharma
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987, p. 49

W hen delusions are absent, the mind is the land of buddhas. When delusions are present, the mind is hell. Mortals create delusions. And by using the mind to give birth to mind they always find themselves in hell. Bodhisattvas see through delusions. And by not using the mind to give birth to mind they always find themselves in the land of buddhas. If you don't use your mind to create mind, every state of mind is empty and every thought is still. You go from one buddha-land to another. If you use your mind to create mind, every state of mind is disturbed and every thought is in motion. You go from one hell to the next.

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quote 3251 | Bodhidharma
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987, p. 61

N ot thinking about anything is zen. Once you know this, walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, everything you do is zen. To know that the mind is empty is to see the buddha… Using the mind to look for reality is delusion. Not using the mind to look for reality is awareness. Freeing oneself from words is liberation.

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quote 3250 | Bodhidharma
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987, p. 49

T o go from mortal to buddha, you have to put an end to karma, nurture your awareness, and accept what life brings.

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quote 3249 | Bodhidharma
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987, p. 35

E verything good and bad comes from your own mind. To find something beyond the mind is impossible.

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quote 3248 | Bodhidharma
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987, p. 77

T o have a body is to suffer. Does anyone with a body know peace? Those who understand this detach themselves from all that exists and stop imagining or seeking anything. The sutras say, "To seek is to suffer. To seek nothing is bliss." When you seek nothing, you're on the Path.

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quote 3247 | Bodhidharma
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987, pp. 5-7

T he essence of the Way is detachment. And the goal of those who practice is freedom from appearances.

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quote 3246 | Bodhidharma
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987, p. 47

T he buddha is your real body, your original mind.

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quote 3245 | Bodhidharma
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987, p. 43

I f you see your nature, you don't need to read sutras or invoke buddhas. Erudition and knowledge are not only useless but also cloud your awareness. Doctrines are only for pointing to the mind. Once you see your mind, why pay attention to doctrines?

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quote 3244 | Bodhidharma
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987, p. 35

T he ultimate Truth is beyond words. Doctrines are words. They're not the Way. The Way is wordless. Words are illusions… Don't cling to appearances, and you'll break through all barriers…

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quote 3243 | Bodhidharma
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987, p. 31

T his mind, through endless kalpas without beginning, has never varied. It has never lived or died, appeared or disappeared, increased or decreased. It's not pure or impure, good or evil, past or future. It's not true or false. It's not male or female. It doesn't appear as a monk or a layman, an elder or a novice, a sage or a fool, a buddha or a mortal. It strives for no realization and suffers no karma. It has no strength or form. It's like space. You can't possess it and you can't lose it. Its movements can't be blocked by mountains, rivers, or rock walls… No karma can restrain this real body. But this mind is subtle and hard to see. It's not the same as the sensual mind. Everyone wants to see this mind, and those who move their hands and feet by its light are as many as the grains of sand along the Ganges, but when you ask them, they can't explain it. It's theirs to use. Why don't they see it?

… Only the wise know this mind, this mind called dharma-nature, this mind called liberation. Neither life nor death can restrain this mind. Nothing can. It's also called the Unstoppable Tathagata, the Incomprehensible, the Sacred Self, the Immortal, the Great Sage. Its names vary but not its essence.

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quote 3242 | Bodhidharma
The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987. The Zen Teaching of Bodhidharma. Trans. Red Pine. New York: North Point Press, 1987, pp. 21-23

C oming and going,
life and death.
A thousand villages,
a million houses.
Don't you get it ?
Moon in the water,
blossom in the sky.

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quote 3025 | Gizan
Stryk, W, and Ikemoto, T. Zen Poems of China. Garden City, NY. Anchor Press, 1973, p. 69.

O ne Nature, perfect and pervading, circulates in all natures.
One Reality, all comprehensive, contains within itself all realities.
The one moon is reflected wherever there is a sheet of water,
And all the moons in all the waters are embraced within the one moon;
The embodied Truth of all the Buddhas enters into my own being,
And my own being is found in union with theirs.

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quote 3024 | Yoka Daishi
Suzuki, D. T Manual of Zen Buddhism. New York: Grove Press, 1960, pp. 97-100

O ur original Buddha-Nature is, in highest truth, devoid of any trace of objectivity. It is void, omnipresent, silent, pure; it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy-and that is all. Enter deeply in it by awakening to it yourself. That which is before you is it, in all its fullness, utterly complete. There is naught besides. Even if you go through all the stages of a Bodhisattva's progress toward Buddhahood, one by one, when at last, in a single flash, you attain to full realization, you will only be realizing the Buddha-Nature that has been with you all the time; and by all the foregoing stages you will have added to it nothing at all. You will come to look upon those aeons of work and achievement as no better than unreal actions performed in a dream. That is why the Tathagata [the Buddha] said: I truly attained nothing from complete, unexcelled Enlightenment.

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quote 3023 | Huang Po
Blofeld John, trans. The Zen Teachings of Huang Po, New York: Grove Press, 1958, p131.

C ountless as the sands of the Ganges are the merits which come from performing the six perfect duties and vast number of similar practices. But since you are fundamentally complete in every respect, you should not try to supplement that perfection by such meaningless practices. When there is occasion for them, perform them, and when the occasion has passed, remain quiescent. If you are not absolutely convinced that the Mind is the Buddha, and if you are attached to forms, practices, and meritorious deeds, your way of thinking is false and quite contrary to the Way. Your mind is the Buddha! There is no other Buddha! There is no other Mind!

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quote 3022 | Huang Po
Blofeld John, trans. The Zen Teachings of Huang Po, New York: Grove Press, 1958, pp. 35-36

I magine a child sleeping next to its parents and dreaming it is being beaten or is painfully sick. The parents cannot help the child no matter how much it suffers … If the child could awaken itself, it could be freed of this suffering automatically. In the same way, one who realizes that his own Mind is Buddha frees himself instantly from sufferings arising from the ceaseless change of birth and death. If a Buddha could prevent it, do you think he would allow even one sentient being to fall into hell?

What is obstructing realization? Nothing but your own half-hearted desire for truth. Think of this and exert yourself to the utmost.

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quote 3021 | Bassui Zenji
Kapleau, Philip. The Three Pillars of Zen. Boston: Beacon Press, 1965, PP. 160-161, 164, 169.

A ll the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the Universal Mind, beside which nothing exists. This Mind, which is without beginning, is unborn and indestructible. It is not green nor yellow, and has neither form nor appearance. It does not belong too the categories of things which exist or do not exist, nor can it be thought of in terms of new or old. It is neither long nor short, big nor small, for it transcends all limits, measures, traces, and comparisons.

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quote 3020 | Huang Po
Huang Po, Blofeld John, trans. The Zen Teachings of Huang Po, New York: Grove Press, 1958, pp. 29-30

I f you would free yourself from the sufferings of birth and death, you must learn the direct way to become a Buddha. This way is no other than the realization of your own Mind … If you want to realize your own Mind, you must first of all look into the source from which thoughts flow. Sleeping and working, standing and sitting, profoundly ask yourself, 'What is my own Mind," with an intense yearning to resolve this question. This searching of one's own Mind leads ultimately to enlightenment.

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quote 3019 | Bassui Zenji
Kapleau, Philip. The Three Pillars of Zen. Boston: Beacon Press, 1965, PP. 160-161, 164, 169.

A teacher of old said, If the beginning is not right, a thousand practices will be useless.
How true these words are! Practice of the way depends on whether the guiding master is a true teacher or not.
The disciple is like wood, and the teacher resembles a craftsman. Even if the wood is good, without a skilled craftsman its extraordinary beauty is not revealed. Even if the wood is bent, placed in skilled hands its splendid merits immediately appear. By this you should know that realization is genuine or false depending on whether the teacher is true or incompetent.

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quote 3018 | Eihei Dogen
Tanahashi' Kazuaki, ed. Moon in a Dewdrop: Writings of Zen Master Dogen. San Francisco: North Point Press, 1985, pp. 34-35.

G ood and learned friends, when I was at Priest Hung-jen's place, I understood immediately as soon as I heard him, and suddenly realized the original nature of True Thusness. For this reason I propagate this doctrine so that it will prevail among later generations and seekers of the Way will be able to achieve perfect wisdom through sudden enlightenment, each to see his own mind, and to become suddenly enlightened through his own original nature. If they are not able to enlighten themselves, they should seek good and learned friends of high standing to show them the way to see their nature.

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quote 2314 | Hui Neng
Hui-neng, in the “Plateform scripture” (liu-tsu t’an-ching), in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 26, 31

W hy not seek in one's own mind the sudden realization of the original nature of True Thusness? The P'u-sa chieh ching says, 'We are originally pure in our self-nature. If we understand our minds and see our nature, we shall achieve Buddhahood ourselves. [And the Wei-mo-chieh (so-shua) ching says] 'Immediately we become completely clear and recover our original mind’.

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quote 2313 | Hui Neng
Hui-neng, in the “Plateform scripture” (liu-tsu t’an-ching), in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 26, 30

W hen there is no thought, one's nature is empty of differentiated characters and is tranquil, but when there is thought, that is self-transformation.

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quote 2312 | Hui Neng
Hui-neng, in the “Plateform scripture” (liu-tsu t’an-ching), in Wing-Tsit Chan, Chinese Philosophy, Chapter 26, 20

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