Faith in Mind: A Commentary on Seng Ts'an's Classic
<i>The Supreme Way is not difficult<br />If only you do not pick and choose.<br />Neither love nor hate,<br />And you will clearly understand.<br />Be off by a hair,<br />And you are as far from it as heaven and earth.</i> <br /><br />These vivid lines begin one of the most beloved and commented upon of all Zen texts, the <i>Hsin Hsin Ming</i> ("Faith in Mind"), a sixth-century poem by the third Chan patriarch, Seng Ts’an. The <i>Hsin Hsin Ming</i> is a masterpiece of economy, expressing the profoundest truth of the enlightened mind in only a few short pages. Master Sheng Yen’s approach is unique among commentaries on the text: he views it as a supremely useful and practical guide to meditation practice. "I do not adopt a scholarly point of view or analytical approach," he says. "Rather, I use the poem as a taking-off point to inspire the practitioner and deal with issues that arise during the course of practice. True faith in mind is the belief grounded in realization that we have a fundamental, unmoving, and unchanging mind. This mind is precisely Buddha mind."