Hsin2

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Introduction
Page One ... Page Two ... 
Page Three ... Without Commentary ... Cleary Translation ... Shinjin-No-Mei D.T.Suzuki
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A translation known as Faith Mind by Clark is a W.I.P.
as is the original Chinese
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::::HsinHsinMing
::::(commentary R.H.Blyth)
 
:THE MORE TALKING AND THINKING, 
:THE FARTHER FROM THE TRUTH. 
:Haiku are the briefest kind of poetry consonant with the 
:possession of form and rhythm. By the reduction of poetical 
:expression to seventeen syllables we narrow the circle around 
:that invisible, unwritable central poetic life until no mistake 
:is possible, no discolouration of the object is left, all is 
:transparent and as though wordless. Yungchia says: 
:When asked, "What is your religion?" 
:I answer, "The Power of the Makahannya". [The Great Wisdom] 
:Sometimes affirming things, sometimes denying them, 
:It is beyond the wisdom of man. 
:Sometimes with common sense, sometimes against it, 
:Heaven cannot make head or tail of it.
 
:CUTTING OFF ALL SPEECH, ALL THOUGHT, 
:THERE IS NOWHERE THAT YOU CANNOT GO. 
:This does not mean that there is to be no speech, no words, but 
:that there is to be speech that is non-speaking, silence that is 
:expressive; thought that is ego-less, mindlessness through which 
:the Mind is flowing. This mindless, speechless, thinking and 
:talking state is one in which we realize the impermanence of all 
:things. But this "realize", does not mean an intellectual 
:comprehension, but a "making real" in ourselves as 
:actual-potential state. It is not that all things are impermanent 
:and that we must perceive this fact, but that our "seeing" the 
:change that a thing is, and the change that is seen are one 
:activity, neither cause nor effect, neither hen nor egg. 
:"There is nowhere that you cannot go", in other words, you are 
:the Buddha, -- not *a* Buddha, but *the* Buddha, beyond all time 
:and space, eternal and infinite, yet here and now. You have all 
:because you have nothing; having no desires, they are all 
:fulfilled, yet you own property; you hope for this and that, talk 
:and think, plan and day-dream.
 
:RETURNING TO THE ROOT, WE GET THE ESSENCE; 
:FOLLOWING AFTER APPEARANCES, WE LOSE THE SPIRIT. 
:What is the "root" of the universe? Some say man, some say God. 
:It is often convenient to have two names for one thing: 
:spiritual, material; human, divine; freewill, determinism; 
:relative, absolute. But if we think of the essence of things as 
:the root, and the things themselves as branches and leaves, we 
:are allowing these "thoughts" and "words", spoken of in the 
:previous verse, to divide once more what is a living unity into a 
:duality that is dead as such. For whether we look at things in 
:their multifariousness, their variety and differences, or at the 
:common elements, the "Life-force", the principles of Science, we 
:are still far from the root, which is not either, not both, not a 
:thing at all, -- yet it is not nothing. Buddhists say the mind, 
:is the root of things -- but it is not something inside us. 
:Christians say it is God, -- but it is not something outside us. 
:But to know, to *realize*, the inside and outside as one, that my 
:profit is your profit, that your loss is my loss, to make this 
:fact, this dead matter-of-fact into a living, yea-saying Fact, -- 
:this is our own and our only problem. When this is solved, in out 
:thinking and speaking, all is solved. When it is not solved, 
:every thought is twisted, every word is sophisticated. Yungchia 
:uses the same metaphor of root and leaves in the following verse:
 
:Cutting off the root (of life and death) directly, 
:This is the mark of Buddhahood; 
:If you go on plucking leaves (of creeds) and seeking branches 
:(of abstract principles), 
:I can do nothing for you. 
 
:IF FOR ONLY A MOMENT WE SEE WITHIN, 
:WE HAVE SURPASSED THE EMPTINESS OF THINGS. 
:Moments of vision, provided that we are watchful for and 
:unforgetful of them, coming and going as they do, like a breath 
:of air, enable us to go beyond the transitoriness, the emptiness, 
:the unreality of things, -- into what? Our going is to nowhere, 
:our going is staying here. It is the timeless and spaceless that 
:cannot exist except in time and space. What happiness to have so 
:many of these moments, for them to run in a stream through our 
:lives! Nietzsche, Mozart, Spinoza, Marcus Aurelius, Basho, -- 
:this is what these names mean to us, the painful-happiness of 
:these moments of seeing within.
 
:CHANGES GO ON IN THIS EMPTINESS 
:ALL BECAUSE OF OUR IGNORANCE. 
:Once we realize that there is no such thing as reality, nothing 
:can appear as real or unreal. All things are empty in their 
:self-nature, and when we realize that nothing is unreal, we are 
:at home in every place; every moment of time, whether past or 
:present, is now. In our yearning for what is to come, in our 
:regrets for what is past, time lives in eternity. Our thoughts 
:wander through infinite space, which is thus in this point of 
:feeling matter.
 
:DO NOT SEEK FOR THE TRUTH, 
:ONLY STOP HAVING AN OPINION. 
:The drowning man searches for water. A more homely and apt 
:illustration is a man looking for the spectacles that are on his 
:nose. Confucius says, "making an axe looking for the one your are 
:using". There is no such thing as "the Truth". The nearest 
:approach to anything like it is our state of mind when we desist 
:form the search for it, and live our life. This is what the 
:"Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment" means when it says: 
:Positive views are all perverted views; 
:All no-opinions are true opinions. 
:And Yungchia says also explicitly, 
:Do not seek after the truth, 
:Do not cut off delusions. 
 
:DO NOT REMAIN IN THE RELATIVE VIEW OF THINGS; 
:RELIGIOUSLY AVOID FOLLOWING IT. 
:In every way the world is double, good and bad, profit and loss, 
:here and there. But from another point of view, "There is nothing 
:good or bad but our thinking makes it so". We are to stop this 
:"thinking", this "having an opinion", this "judging". Yet if you 
:say, this is the right view, this is the wring, this the 
:relative, this is the absolute, we are still "following" it. 
:Truth is attained only when we realize that there is nothing to 
:attain to. Eternity has its fulness of perfection in us only when 
:we are engrossed in the temporal and imperfect.
 
:IF THERE IS THE SLIGHTEST TRACE OF THIS AND THAT, 
:THE MIND IS LOST IN THE MAZE OF COMPLEXITY. 
:The Middle Way is indeed the difficult path to tread, a 
:razor-edge from which we fall into the common errors of mankind. 
:When we compare the Chinese above with the Hebrew:
 
:Thou shalt worship no other God; for the Lord, whose name is 
:jealous, is a jealous God. 
:We cannot but be struck by the variety of expressions of an 
:identical, inexpressible truth. There is here a variety in which 
:the Mind is *not* lost; this *is* that, however well disguised.
 
:DUALITY ARISES FROM UNITY; 
:BUT DO NOT BE ATTACHED TO THIS UNITY. 
:It is the One that unites the Two; without It, the Buddha-nature, 
:the Void, the Mind, this and that could not exist. But do not 
:despise this and that and yearn after the Ground of Existence. 
:Things and circumstances are in themselves neutral, not 
:meaningless, but *not* coloured intrinsically with the "opinion" 
:we have of them. 
:When we clap our hands, 
:The maid serves tea, 
:Birds fly up, 
:Fish draw near, -- 
:At the pond in Sarusawa. 
:The clapping of the hands is It. The sound as interpreted by the 
:maid-servant, by the bird, by the fish, is only half of It. But 
:without halves there is no whole, just as without whole there are 
:no halves. As we endeavour to release ourselves from phenomena, 
:the relative world, we became attached to something even more 
:non-existent, the thing in itself, the noumenon, and thus also it 
:is said:
:Holding to the One in not Truth. 
 
:WHEN THE MIND IS ONE, AND NOTHING HAPPENS, 
:EVERYTHING IN THE WORLD IS UNBLAMEABLE. 
:"Nothing happens" means our realizing that nothing increases or 
:decreases, things are as they are. This is "realized" when the 
:mind is undivided, when in my own person you and I, he and I are 
:different names of one thing, that is nevertheless two things. 
:When nothing in the world is "blamed" as itself and nothing else, 
:or everything, when, that is, nature has done its part and we do 
:ours, when we do not upbraid circumstances or indulge in 
:self-reproach, the mind is the mind and nothing untoward can 
:occur. Chesterton rightly says,
 
:An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly understood. An 
:inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. 
:("On Running After One's Hat") 
:Things are unblameable, unpraiseable as they flow from change to change: 
:Whatever arises from the nature of the whole, and tends towards 
:its well-being, is good also for every part of that nature. But 
:the well-being of the universe depends on change, not only of the 
:elementary, nut also of the compound. 
:(Marcus Aurelius) 
 
:IN THINGS ARE UNBLAMED THEY CEASE TO EXIST; 
:IF NOTHING HAPPENS, THERE IS NO MIND. 
:When we neither censure or praise anything, all things are devoid 
:of censurable and praiseworthy qualities. When we do not judge 
:things, things do not judge us. When things simply flow, every 
:atom according to its own nature, according to Nature, according 
:to its Buddha-nature, there is no mind as something separable 
:from what is not mind. Yungchia says:
 
:Walking is Zen, sitting is Zen; 
:Whether we speak or are silent, move or are still, 
:It is unperturbed.
 
:WHEN THINGS CEASE TO EXIST, THE MIND FOLLOWS THEM; 
:WHEN THE MIND VANISHES, THINGS ALSO FOLLOW IT. 
:Subject and object, I and that, here and there, -- when one or 
:the other (it does not matter which) ceases, both cease. 
:According to our temperaments, we find it less difficult to 
:become aware of the emptiness of the ego-concept or the emptiness 
:of the thing-concept. It is the same difference that gives us the 
:*jiriki* and *tariki* sects, self-power and other-power. The 
:first like refers to the former, and the second to the latter. 
:Yungchia says: 
:Trying to get rid of illusion, and seeking to grasp reality, -- 
:This giving up and keeping is mere sophistry and lies. 
:In other words, seeking for the truth and avoiding 
:discrimination, is itself discrimination. So long as we look for 
:reality outside ourselves, or inside ourselves, so long will 
:things refrain from following the (non-)ego into non-existence, 
:and the (illusory) ego refrain from following things into their 
:emptiness. Outside and inside are the same thing: what is 
:outside? 
:It is but a little blood, a few bones, a paltry net woven from 
:nerves and veins. A little air, and this for ever changing; every 
:minute of every hour we are gasping it forth and sucking it in 
:again. 
:What is inside? 
:Sense-perceptions vague and shadowy... the things of the soul, 
:dreams, vapours. (Marcus Aurelius) 
 
:THINGS ARE THINGS BECAUSE OF THE MIND; 
:THE MIND IS MIND BECAUSE OF THE THINGS. 
:The aim of Zen, the aim of the poetical life, is to reach and 
:remain in that undifferentiated state where subject and object 
:are one, in which the object is perceived by simple 
:introspection, the subject is the self-conscious object. Subject 
:and object and to be realized as the two sides of one sheet of 
:paper, that is one and yet is two. The one piece of paper cannot 
:exist without the two sides, nor the two sides without the one 
:sheet. This analogy fails to satisfy if taken in any other way 
:but lightly and quickly, for to what should we compare the 
:universe? How can anything be true parable of the Essence of 
:Being?
 
:IF YOU WISH TO KNOW WHAT THESE TWO ARE, 
:THEY ARE ORIGINALLY ONE EMPTINESS. 
:The Emptiness is described in the following way: it is perfectly 
:Harmonious, subject and object, Mind and Form are one. it is Pure 
:and Undefiled, things are, just as they are, delivered from all 
:stain of sin or imperfection. It is Unobstructed; all things are 
:free, interpenetrative. That is to way it is age-less, non-moral, 
:law-less. It is like light, containing all colours in it, but 
:itself colourless. It is not a thing but contains all things; 
:not a person but includes all minds; not beautiful or ugly but 
:the essence of both.
 
:IN THIS VOID, BOTH (MIND AND THINGS) ARE ONE. 
:ALL THE MYRIAD PHENOMENA CONTAINED IN BOTH. 
:All mental phenomena are contained in things; all things are 
:contained in the mind. But this "in" has an interpenetrative 
:meaning; it is not the "in" of "inside" and "outside". An example 
:of this interpenetration: 
:The Rose of Sharon 
:At the side of the road 
:Was eaten by my horse. 
: ~ Basho ~
:IF YOU DO NOT DISTINGUISH "REFINED" AND "COARSE", 
:HOW CAN YOU BE *FOR* THIS AND *AGAINST* THAT? 
:By "refined" and "coarse" is meant all the pairs of relatives 
:under which we look at the world. Habit makes it seem a necessity 
:that we should view the world so, since custom lies upon us "with 
:the weight heavy as frost, and deep almost as life", but moments 
:of vision, all moments profound enough to reach through to the 
:Void, the Ground of Being, the Way, tell us that refined or 
:coarse though things be, they are something which is neither, 
:yet which is not neither. Thoreau gives us an example, all the 
:truer because it is an unconscious one, of the way in which 
:the rough and the smooth are the same: 
:The landscape was clothed in a mild and quiet light, in 
:which the woods and fences checkered and partitioned it 
:with new regularity, and rough and uneven fields stretched 
:away with lawn-like smoothness to the horizon, and the clouds, 
:finely distinct and picturesque, seemed a fit drapery to hang 
:over fairy-land.
 
:Thus all our preferences, from the weakest down to the strongest, 
:must be seen as one-sided, not in the sense that there are other 
:justifiable points of view, but that the thing is simply *not* 
:what we suppose it to be, the quality ascribed to it is entirely 
:absent. Then what is the thing if it is devoid of all qualities? 
:It is devoid of absence of those qualities, and what is meant by 
:this unpalatable conglomeration of negatives is that in some 
:mysterious way the thing is alive, it exists with a palpitating 
:stillness. A dark, invisible radiance comes from it, it moves 
:from nowhere to nowhere, its future and its past ever present. It 
:is the Way it travels; however small it fills all space; it is 
:the Ground of Being and the Flowers of the Spirit that spring 
:from it. It is the intimations of immortality and the certainty 
:of annihilation.
 
:THE ACTIVITY OF THE GREAT WAY IS VAST; 
:IT IS NEITHER EASY NOR DIFFICULT. 
:The Way is called Great because there is nowhere else to walk 
:but on it: 
:I make myself a slave and yet must follow. 
:There is nothing difficult or easy about it, for it includes all 
:existence and all non-existence, all that is and all that can 
:never be. We think it is easy and it is not; we suppose it to be 
:difficult, and it is not. The ease or difficulty in entirely in 
:our fancy. But this fancy also is included in the vastness of the 
:activity of the Great Way and forms an essential part of it. 
:Marcus Aurelius says:
 
:Forget not that all is opinion, and that opinion subject to thee. 
:Then cast it out when thou wilt, and, like the mariner who has 
:doubled the cape, thou wilt find thyself in a great calm, a 
:smooth sea, and a tideless bay.
 
:SMALL VIEWS ARE FULL OF FOXY FEARS; 
:THE FASTER THE SLOWER. 
:Nothing can be achieved without courage. We fear to give up the 
:bird in the hand for the two in the bush. This bird in the hand 
:is not only life itself, but, for example, the Fatherhood of God. 
:When we give up life, we pass beyond life and death. When we 
:give up the Fatherhood of God, we lose also the feeling of 
:dependence and servility. But we are still alive, God is still 
:Our Father, -- but with a difference. Even with doubt there is 
:small view and large view, the former an over-cautiousness, 
:unadventurousness like that of the fox who will not venture on 
:the ice until it is safe for an elephant; and the Great Doubt, 
:which is the positive, active, thrusting doubt akin to curiosity 
:but much stronger and deeper. 
:Ordinary study is cumulative, but with Zen it is not so, because 
:it belongs to the timeless. This is why it is said, "The faster 
:the slower". The more you search, the farther away it gets, for 
:it is an open secret. To love God and love one's fellow man, -- 
:there is nothing beyond this, nothing that requires explanation. 
:Marcus Aurelius says: 
:Life and death, fame and infamy, pain and pleasure, wealth and 
:poverty fall to the lot of both just and unjust, because they are 
:neither fair nor foul, neither good nor evil.
 
:WHEN WE ATTACH OURSELVES TO THIS (IDEA OF ENLIGHTENMENT), 
:WE LOOSE OUR BALANCE; WE INFALLIBLY ENTER THE CROOKED WAY. 
:Our experience, our deepest experience has taught us something; 
:we wish to convey it to others. When they question its validity, 
:we become angry, losing our mental serenity by holding so firmly 
:to what is after all more intangible than snow-flakes or the 
:rainbow. It is not merely calmness of mind that we have lost, 
:however, but what is this and more, the Middle Way, the knowledge 
:(and practice) that our profoundest interpretation of life also 
:must be thrown overboard together with the sentimentality, 
:cruelty, snobbery, and folly that make our lives a misery. The 
:Crooked Way is not a morally distorted manner of life. It is 
:composed of virtues as much as of vices, of ideals, religious 
:dogmas, principles of freedom and justice, as much as of 
:degradation and tyranny. The Crooked Way is over-grieving at 
:inevitable sorrows, over-clinging to joys which must cease; it is 
:regarding as permanent what is but transitory; always looking for 
:the silver lining, desiring to be in the non-existent and 
:impossible "Land beyond the morning star".
 
:WHEN WE ARE NOT ATTACHED TO ANYTHING, ALL THINGS ARE AS THEY ARE; 
:WITH ACTIVITY THERE IS NO GOING, NO STAYING. 
:Seize it and your hands are empty; drop it and they are full to 
:overflowing. Ask, and ye shall not receive, is the iron law. But 
:this non-asking is no indifference of blankness. It is like the 
:"weakness" of women that overcomes the strongest man. It is like 
:the force of gravity which pulls down the highest towers with not 
:a single movement on its own part. Buds open in spring without 
:straining; leaves fall in autumn without reluctance. The seasons 
:come and go, years and centuries, -- but not the Activity, not 
:the Great Way. There is no presence or absence, no increase or 
:diminution with that.
 
:OBEYING OUR NATURE, WE ARE IN ACCORD WITH THE WAY. 
:WANDERING FREELY, WITHOUT ANNOYANCE. 
:Our own nature is not different from the nature of all things in 
:which there is nothing unnatural. The fiends of Hell, the 
:monsters of the deepest seas, the bacteria of our bosoms, the 
:perversions of maniacs cannot surprise or distrust us. Living by 
:Zen or without it, in perpetual fear and irritation; sadism and 
:masochism; the destruction of life and beauty; the annihilation 
::of the universe, -- none of these things can appal us. Our own 
:faults and shortcomings, crimes and follies are a pleasure to 
:us; the punishment they bring to us and the others are yet 
:another confirmation of our insight into our true nature, 
:overlaid as it is with illusions and superimposed habits that 
:have become instincts, and usurp the authority of the Activity 
:that yet works unceasingly within and without us.
 
:WHEN OUR THINKING IS TIED, 
:IT IS DARK, SUBMERGED, WRONG. 
:It is *dark*, so that we cannot distinguish the true nature of 
:things; we see friends as enemies, strengthening trials as 
:useless annoyances. We fail to perceive the so-called defects and 
:errors of others as an aspect of their Buddha nature. It is 
:*submerged*; it does not float upon the waves of circumstances 
:that can both drown or buoy us up. When all things work together 
:for good because we love God, that is, we seek not to change that 
:which is inevitable, the outside, but only the free, the inside, 
:then we are as light as corks however low the billows descend, 
:however high they mount aloft. It is *wrong*, because our nature 
:is freedom. Perfect service, no task left undone or scamped, as 
:best exemplified in a mother's unfailing, tender care, is right 
:because not tied by duty or public opinion. When we look around 
:and see odious people, a world of stupidity and spitefulness, the 
:weather always too warm or too cold, all the elements conspiring 
:to annoy us, death approaching nearer with ira prophetic twinges 
:and dull throbs, this is to be tied, pressed down by dark, 
:mournful waves of thought; Marcus Aurelius again: 
:Thou art stricken in years; then suffer it not to remain a 
:bond-servant; suffer is not to be puppet-like, hurried hither and 
:thither by impulses that take no thought of thy fellow-man; 
:suffer it not to murmur at destiny in the present or look askance 
:at it in the future.
 
:IT IS FOOLISH TO IRRITATE YOUR MIND; 
:WHY SHUN THIS AND BE FRIENDS WITH THAT? 
:Our ordinary mind, our ordinary life consists of nothing else but 
:avoiding this and pursuing that, but the life of "reason", that 
:rises up at times from some submerged realm into conscious life 
:is far other: 
:The mind, when once it has withdrawn itself to itself and 
:realized its own power has neither part nor lot with the soft 
:and pleasant, or harsh and painful motions of thy breath. 
:(Marcus Aurelius)
 
:IF YOU WISH TO TRAVEL IN THE VEHICLE, 
:DO NOT DISLIKE THE SIX DUSTS. 
:The Six Dusts are qualities produced by the objects and organs of 
:sense: sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and idea. The One 
:Vehicle is the Mahayana, the vehicle of Oneness. The 
:"Saddharmapundarika Sutra" ("Hokkekyo") says: 
:Only one vehicle of the Law, 
:Not two, and not three. 
:The Six Dusts, that is, the body and its attendant misguided 
:ideas, are the cause of all our unhappiness and suffering, and 
:prevent us from seeing things as they really are and from having 
:the peace of mind that is our birthright. But an old waka says, 
:illustrating the way in which nothing is good or bad of its 
:nature, but thinking makes it so: 
:Sin and evil 
:Are not to be got rid of 
:Just blindly; 
:Look at the astringent persimmons! 
:They turn into sweet dried ones. 
:If you get rid of the unripe, astringent persimmon, how shall you 
:obtain the ripe one? Get rid of the Six Dusts, and where will the 
:One Vehicle be? A well known poetess has said the same thing in a 
:more sentimental manner: 
:He would not give me a lodging; 
:How disagreeable it was! 
:But through his kindness, 
:I could sleep beneath the cherry-blossoms 
:Under the hazy moon that night. 
 
:INDEED, NOT HATING THE SIX DUSTS 
:IS IDENTICAL WITH REAL ENLIGHTENMENT. 
:This absence of hatred, of intolerance, disgust, righteous 
:indignation, discrimination and judging, is itself the state of 
:Buddhahood. This negativeness, however, is not that of the 
:opposite of affirmation. It is not the passive condition it seems 
:to be, neither can it be described by the words "love our 
:enemies". It is not absence of feeling, of indifference, but some 
:unnameable attitude of mind in which evil is accepted as such 
:though not condoned. It is descried by George Eliot in following 
:way: 
:"Ay sir", said Luke, as he gave his arm to his master, 
:"you will make up your mind to it a bit better, when you've seen 
:everything; you'll get used to it. That's what my mother says 
:about her shortness of breath - she says she's made friends wi' 
:it, though she fought against it when it first came in". 
:("The Mill on the Floss") 
:In a word, we must not hate hatred.
 
:THE WISE MAN DOES NOTHING, 
:THE FOOL SHACKLES HIMSELF. 
:The wise passivity is that of nature: 
:The buds swell imperceptibly without hurry or confusion, as if 
:the short spring day were an eternity. 
:(Thoreau, "A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers")
 
:We bind ourselves with our likes and dislikes, we are bound with 
:fancied bonds. There is nothing so strong in the world as a 
:delusion, nothing so indestructible as this imaginary, 
:non-existent self and its temporary profit and loss, loving and 
:loathing.
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Introduction
Page One ... Page Two ... 
Page Three ... Without Commentary ... Cleary Translation ... Shinjin-No-Mei D.T.Suzuki
----
A translation known as Faith Mind by Clark is a W.I.P.
as is the original Chinese
----
Category:-ts-