Hsin6

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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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ON BELIEVING IN MIND (1) (SHINJIN-NO-MEI)
by Chien-chih Seng-ts'an (Sosan)
Third Zen Patriarch [Died 606CE]
Translated by D.T.Suzuki (2)
 
:The Perfect Way knows no difficulties
:Except that it refuses to make preferences;
:Only when freed from hate and love,
:It reveals itself fully and without disguise;
:A tenth of an inch's difference,
:And heaven and earth are set apart;
:If you wish to see it before your own eyes,
:Have no fixed thoughts either for or against it.
:To set up what you like against what you dislike
:This is the disease of the mind:
:When the deep meaning [of the Way] is not understood
:Peace of mind is disturbed to no purpose.
:[The Way is] perfect like unto vast space,
:With nothing wanting, nothing superfluous:
:It is indeed due to making choice
:That its suchness is lost sight of.
:Pursue not the outer entanglements,
:Dwell not in the inner void;
:Be serene in the oneness of things,
:And [dualism] vanishes by itself.
:When you strive to gain quiescence by stopping motion,
:The quiescence thus gained is ever in motion;
:As long as you tarry in the dualism,
:How can you realize oneness?
:And when oneness is not thoroughly understood,
:In two ways loss is sustained:
:The denying of reality is the asserting of it,
:And the asserting of emptiness is the denying of it.
:Wordiness and intellection -
:The more with them the further astray we go;
:Away therefore with wordiness and intellection,
:And there is no place where we cannot pass freely.
:When we return to the root, we gain the meaning;
:When we pursue external objects, we lose the reason.
:The moment we are enlightened within,
:We go beyond the voidness of a world confronting us.
:Transformations going on in an empty world which confronts us
:Appear real all because of Ignorance:
:Try not to seek after the true,
:Only cease to cherish opinions.
:Abide not with dualism,
:Carefully avoid pursuing it;
:As soon as you have right and wrong,
:Confusion ensues, and Mind is lost.
:The two exist because of the One,
:But hold not even to this One;
:When a mind is not disturbed,
:The ten thousand things offer no offence.
:No offence offered, and no ten thousand things;
:No disturbance going, and no mind set up to work:
:The subject is quieted when the object ceases,
:The object ceases when the subject is quieted.
:The object is an object for the subject,
:The subject is a subject for the object:
:Know that the relativity of the two
:Rests ultimately on one Emptiness.
:In one Emptiness the two are not distinguished,
:And each contains in itself all the ten thousand things
:When no discrimination is made between this and that.
:How can a one-sided and prejudiced view arise?
:The Great Way is calm and large-hearted,
:For it, nothing is easy, nothing is hard;
:Small views are irresolute,
:The more in haste the tardier they go.
:Clinging is never kept within bounds,
:It is sure to go the wrong way;
:Quit it, and things follow their own courses,
:While the Essence neither departs nor abides.
:Obey the nature of things, and you are in concord with the Way,
:Calm and easy and free from annoyance;
:But when your thoughts are tied, you turn away from the truth,
:They grow heavier and duller and are not at all sound.
:When they are not sound, the spirit is troubled;
:What is the use of being partial and one-sided then?
:If you want to walk the course of the One Vehicle,
:Be not prejudiced against the six sense-objects.
:When you are not prejudiced against the six sense-objects,
:You are then one with the Enlightenment;
:The wise are non-active,
:While the ignorant bind themselves up;
:While in the Dharma itself there is no individuation,
:They ignorantly attach themselves to particular objects.
:It is their own mind that creates illusions –
:Is this not the greatest of all self-contradictions?
:The ignorant cherish the idea of rest and unrest,
:The enlightened have no likes and dislikes:
:All forms of dualism
:Are contrived by the ignorant themselves.
:They are like unto visions and flowers in the air;
:Why should we trouble ourselves to take hold of them?
:Gain and loss, right and wrong –
:Away with them once for all!
:If an eye never falls asleep,
:All dreams will by themselves cease:
:If the Mind retains its absoluteness,
:The ten thousand things are of one Suchness.
:When the deep mystery of one Suchness is fathomed,
:All of a sudden we forget the external entanglements;
:When the ten thousand things are viewed in their oneness,
:We return to the origin and remain where we ever have been.
:Forget the wherefore of things,
:And we attain to a state beyond analogy;
:Movement stopped and there is no movement,
:Rest set in motion and there is no rest;
:When dualism does no more obtain,
:Oneness itself abides not.
:The ultimate end of things where they cannot go any further
:Is not bound by rules and measures:
:In the Mind harmonious [with the Way] we have the principle of identity,
:In which we find all strivings quieted;
:Doubts and irresolutions are completely done away with,
:And the right faith is straightened;
:There is nothing left behind,
:There is nothing retained,
:All is void, lucid, and self-illuminating;
:There is no exertion, no waste of energy
:This is where thinking never attains,
:This is where the imagination fails to measure.
:In the higher realm of true Suchness
:There is neither "self" nor "other":
:When direct identification is sought,
:We can only say, "Not two".
:In being "not two" all is the same,
:All that is is comprehended in it;
:The wise in the ten quarters,
:They all enter into this Absolute Reason.
:This Absolute Reason is beyond quickening [time] and extending [space],
:For it one instant is ten thousand years;
:Whether we see it or not,
:It is manifest everywhere in all the ten quarters.
:Infinitely small things are as large as large things can be,
:For here no external conditions obtain;
:Infinitely large things are as small as small things can be,
:For objective limits are here of no consideration.
:What is is the same as what is not,
:What is not is the same as what is:
:Where this state of things fails to obtain,
:Indeed, no tarrying there.
:One in All,
:All in One –
:If only this is realized,
:No more worry about your not being perfect!
:Where Mind and each believing mind are not divided,
:And undivided are each believing mind and Mind,
:This is where words fail;
:For it is not of the past, present, and future.
 
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Notes
1. On translating the word Hsin, D.T.Suzuki notes: "The Mind = the Way = the One = Emptiness." In another footnote he says: "Mind = hsin. Hsin is one of those Chinese words which defy translation.……..If we could leave hsin [untranslated] with all its nuance of meaning in this translation, it would save us from the difficulties that face us in its English rendering. For hsin means "mind", "soul", "spirit"- each singly as well as all inclusively."
2. D.T.Suzuki, Manual Of Zen Buddhism, New York: Evergreen Edition, 1960.
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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
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Category:-ts-