Hsin intro

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Introduction
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Page Three ... Without Commentary
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Cleary Translation
Shinjin-No-Mei by D.T.Suzuki
A translation known as Faith Mind by Clark is a W.I.P.
The original Chinese
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Related links: Seeking_The_Ox
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:::: Introduction to:
::::The Hsinhsinming
:::Seng T'san, Third Chan Patriarch
:::The following is an excerpt from:
:::Zen and Zen Classics Volume One 
:::::R. H. Blyth
The "Hsinhsinming" 
 ("Shinjinmei") was one of the first treatises 
 on Zen, at least, of those that remain to us. The author of this 
 Buddhist "hymn", Sengtsan (Sosan), the third (Chinese) Zen 
 patriarch from Dharma, the first Chinese and the twenty-eighth 
 Indian Zen patriarch, lived during the sixth century, dying in 
 606 A.D. His place of origin is unknown. The conversion of 
 Sengtsan at the hands of Huike (Eka), the Second Patriarch, is 
 recorded in the "Chuantenglu" ("Dentoroku"), Part 3: 
 Sengtsan asked Huike, saying,
"I am diseased: I implore you to cleanse me of my sin". 
Huike said, "Bring me your sin and I will cleanse you of it".
Sengtsan thought for awhile; then said, "I cannot get at it". 
Huike replied, "Then I have cleansed you of it". 
Sengtsan realized, not simply in his mind, but in every bone of 
 his body, that his sinfulness was an illusion, one with that of 
 the illusion of self. As soon as we are aware of our 
 irresponsibility, all the cause of misbehaviour disappears in so 
 far as the cause, (the illusion of the self) is removed. If we 
 have no self, it cannot commit sin. Yet, it must be added, 
 "I can't see how you and I, who don't exist, should get to 
 speaking here, and smoke our pipes, for all the world like 
 reality". (Stevenson, "Fables")
 And from another point of view, our self is real entity, real in 
 so far as we know (physically) that, as Yuima said, your illness 
 is my illness. When one part of the body is diseased, all is 
 diseased, for "We are members one of another". In this sense, 
 there is no rest for any one of us while one restless *soul* remains.
 But the real rest of "the man who has arrived", is something much 
 deeper than this, which no simile or metaphor can express, lying as
 it does essential in the restlessness itself. An old waka says: 
Do not think,
 After the clouds have passed away, 
 "How bright is has become!" 
 For in the sky, all the while, 
 The moon of dawn. 
It is the region of Arnold's lines, "In Kensington Gardens": 
Birds here make song, each bird has his, 
 Across the girdling city's hum. 
 How green under the boughs it is! 
 How thick the tremulous sheep cries come! 
To go back to Sengtsan. He became the disciple of the Second 
 Patriarch and practiced austerities and led a life of devotion and 
 poverty, receiving the bowl and the robe, insignia of the 
 transmission through Bodhidharma, the First Patriarch (of China) 
 of the Buddha Mind. At this time, one of the periodic 
 persecutions of Buddhism broke out. Sutras and images were burned 
 wholesale; monks and nuns were returned to the lay life. 
 Sengtsan wandered for fifteen years all over the country, 
 avoiding persecution. In 592, he met Taohsin (Doshin), who became 
 the Fourth Patriarch. His enlightenment was as follows: 
Taohsin came and bowed to Sengtsan, and said, "I ask you for your 
 merciful teaching. Please show me how to be released". Sengtsan 
 answered, "Who has bound you?" "No one", he replied. Sengtsan 
 
 said, "Why then do you ask to be released?" Taohsin immediately 
 came to a profound realization. (Chuantenglu, 3) 
 This is very much like, even suspiciously like, the enlightenment 
 of Sengtsan himself. The question of historicity is quite 
 different, however, from the "truth" of the incident, which is 
 that of the "Hsinhsinming" itself, which owed its composition, no
 doubt, to the fact that during these troublous times the wordless 
 message was in danger of being entirely forgotten, or worse 
 still, misunderstood. What this was may be seen in the Four 
 Statements of the Zen Sect [The originator of these seems to be 
 unknown. They are sometimes attributed to Bodhidharma, but are 
 more likely to have been formulated afterwards, during the Tang 
 and the Sung Eras.]: 
 1. No dependence on words and letters. 
 To apply this to poetry, whose medium is words and phrases, may 
 seem absurd. It is like pictures without paint and music without 
 sound. But words are a peculiar medium, in being the vehicle for 
 all communication, whether poetical or otherwise. In poetry, 
 parallel with it, living a life of its own apart from that of 
 the so-called poetry, is an unnameable spirit that moves and has 
 its being. It is the darkness and silence of things, of which the 
 ordinary poetical meaning is the light and sound. 
 2. A special transmission outside the Scriptures. 
 There is a transmission from poet to poet of the spirit of poetry 
 deeply similar to that of Zen from monk to monk. A poet knows 
 another poet by indubitable yet invisible signs; the same is true 
 of the artist and the musician. But the poet especially (in the 
 wide and profound sense of the word) feels and transmits 
 unwittingly that attitude towards life that is the real poetry of 
 the world. 
Two came here,
 Two flew off, -- 
 Butterflies.
 ~ Chora ~ (1720-1781) 
In this verse, the ordinary poetical meaning is discarded; what 
 remains is that dark flame of life that burns in all things. It 
 is seen with the belly, not with the eye; with "bowels of 
 compassion". 
3. Direct pointing to the soul of man. 
How can there 
 be such a thing as pointing without a finger? How 
 can art subsist without a medium? What is this silence that 
 speaks so loudly? 
Beat the fulling 
 block for me, 
 In my loneliness; 
 Now again let it cease.
 ~ Buson ~ (1715-1783)
A fishing village;
 Dancing under the moon, 
 To the smell of raw fish.
 ~ Shiki ~ (1866-1902)
The flame too is motionless, 
 A rounded sphere 
 Of winter seclusion.
 ~ Yaha ~ (1662-1740)
4. Seeing into one's nature and the attainment of Buddhahood.
 Attaining Buddhahood 
 means attaining manhood, being a citizen of 
 the world, of double sex; besides this Shakespearean state, it 
 means attaining childhood, beast-hood, flower-hood, stone-hood, 
 even word-hood and idea-hood, and place-hood and time-hood.
 As for the skin,
 What a difference 
 Between a man and a woman! 
 But as for the bones, 
 Both are simply human beings.
 ~ Ikkyu ~ (1394-1481) 
 Spring rains. 
 A letter thrown away, 
 Blown along in the grove.
 ~ Issa ~ 
 A camellia flower fell; 
 A cock crowed; 
 Some more fell.
 ~ Baishitsu ~ 
 It was the inner meaning of these Four Statements that Sengtsan 
 desired to perpetuate in the five hundred and eighty-four 
 characters of the poem. In it he has condensed the essence of all 
 the Buddhist Sutras, all the one thousand seven hundred koans of Zen. 
 The title of the work may be explained in the following way. 
 First *hsin* is faith, not in the Christian sense of a bold 
 flight of the soul towards God, a belief in what is unseen 
 because of what is seen, but a belief in that which has been 
 experienced, knowledge, conviction. Second *hsin*, the mind, is 
 not our mind in the ordinary sense, but the Buddha-nature which 
 each of us has unbeknown to us. *Ming* is a recording, for the 
 benefit of others. The title thus means a description of that 
 part of oneself where no doubt is possible. This is the same 
 unshakable conviction that Shelley and Beethoven and Gauguin had. 
 They too recorded what they saw with their eyes and heard with 
 their ears, there to hesitation or indecision could enter. 
 Especially noteworthy is the absolute faith in the value of the 
 apparently trivial. 
 The old temple:
 A baking pan 
 Thrown away among the parsley.
 ~ Buson ~ 
 Young greens 
 Fallen on the outer verandah, 
 The earth with them. 
 ~ Ransetsu ~
 What is the 
 Buddha? A baking pan thrown away in the parsley. 
 What is the meaning of Dharma's coming from the West? Young greens on 
 the verandah, the dirt with them. But these things are not 
 something outside the mind. As Dogen (1200-1253) said: 
 "If we seek the Buddha outside the mind, the Buddha changes into a devil." 
 But we must come to the poem itself. 
 The "Hsinhsinming", entitled "Inscribed on the Believing Mind", 
 was translated, extraordinary well, in 1927, by Dr. Suzuki 
 Daisetz, in "Essays in Zen Buddhism", Series 1, pp. 182-187. 
 [Reprinted in "Manual of Zen Buddhism", 1935, pp. 91-97. The 
 title is changed to "On Believing in Mind".] (The present 
 translation is in many places little more that a garbled version 
 of his.) It consists of 146 unrhymed lines of four characters a 
 line, shorter than the general run of Chinese verse, which 
 usually has five or seven. Perhaps the brevity suits the mood of 
 Zen, and prevents any literary or rhetorical flourishes. There 
 have been many commentaries on the "Hsinhsinming", the first 
 perhaps being by Chou Myohon, 1263-1323, who quotes the 
 "Chengtaoke" ("Shodoka"), in illustration. 
 Of other verse expositions of Zen, we may mention first this 
 "Chengtaoke" [Translated by Suzuki in "Manual of Zen Buddhism", 
 
 1935, pp. 106-121.], a hundred years later than the 
 "Hsinhsinming", by Yungchia, (Yoka Daishi), d. 713, one of the 
 chief disciples of Huineng, the Sixth Patriarch. It is three 
 times as long, and more flowery in style. In the Tang Dynasty we 
 have also the "Tsantungchi" ("Sandokai") [This means, 
 "Difference-identity-agreement", or "Phenomena-reality-ite", 
 
 Zen as the harmony between the sameness and difference of 
 things.], by Shihtou (Sekito), 700-790. Then we have 
 "Paochingsanmei" ("Hokyosammai"), ascribed variously to 
 Yuehshan 
 (Yakusan), 731-834; Yunyen (Ungan), d. 841; and Tungshan (Dosan), 
 807-867. To the Tang period also belongs the most famous of the 
 strictly Zen poets, Hanshan (Kanzan), whose dates are uncertain. 
 An examples of his verse is the following: 
 The Mind is like the autumn moon, 
 Like the mountain pool, clear and pure, -- 
 But what can I compare it to? 
 How can I ever express it in words? 
 This reminds us of Shakespeare's "Shall I compare thee to a 
 summer's day?"
 Coming to the Sung dynasty, we have the poetical 
 comments by Hsuehtou (Seccho), c. 1000 A.D., in the Piyenchi 
 ("Hekiganshu") [Cases 2, 57, 58, 59 are based on the first lines 
 of the Hsinhsinming, which Chaochou (Joshu) seems to have 
 admired.], edited by Yuanwu (Engo), who was born in 1135; and the 
 verses composed by Hungchih (Wanshi) [One would expect "Kochi".], 
 
 1091-1157, for the "Tsungjunglu" ("Shoyoroku"), a similar 
 compilation of "cases" of Zen. 
 All these, including the "Hsinhsinming" itself, seem to me verse, 
 not poetry. It is true that, to parody Keats, the life of Zen is 
 the poetical life, and the poetical life in the life of Zen; this 
 is all we know, and all we need to know. But art in not life; it 
 is in some sense the very dissatisfaction with life, which if 
 perfectly satisfactory, (as in the case of the rest of creation,) 
 will never transform itself into those psalms and symphonies 
 which 
 Look before and after, 
 And pine for what is not. 
 The "Hsinhsinming" then, is rather the basis for a theory of 
 poetry, or the philosophic background, an expression of the 
 implicit *raison d'etre* of the composition of certain kinds of 
 poetry, like that of haiku, of Wordsworth and Clare, of Tao 
 Chinnimg (Toenmei) and Po Chui (Hakukyoi). In explaining and 
 illustrating the "Hsinhsinming" I have therefore quoted the poets
 rather than the religious writers. The poetry is the flower, the 
 "Hsinhsinming" is the roots. 
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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
----
Related links: Seeking_The_Ox
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Category:-ts-