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What is ZEN?
This question basically asks "What is the essence of Zen?". It appears in various guises throughout Zen literature, from "What is the meaning of Bodhidharma's coming from the West?" to "Have you eaten yet?". The question cuts right to the heart of the matter and can only be answered by you. Perhaps the best answer is "practice".
When the MANY is reduced to ONE,
To what is the ONE reduced?
Poem of a true mind
A perfect path knows no difficulties,
Except those, that cannot be preconceived of;
Only when one is free from hatred and love,
It opens before us as it is.
Placing preconceptions on anything,
You risk loosing everything,
If you wish to achieve it,
Avoid all thoughts ''for'' and ''against'' it.
Comparing the pleasant with unpleasant -
Is a sickness of the mind:
It's deepest meaning is unknown,
There is no calmness in the mind, and no progression.
The perfect path is like a bottomless sky:
There is nothing missing and nothing extra.
Practically, only because we choose,
We loose sight of it's essence.
Do not get attached to anything external,
But also do no live in the internal emptiness.
When the mind rests in the ONENESS of things,
Duality disappears all by itself.
When ONENESS is not fully realized,
Two types of illusion take place -
Denial of reality can bring to absolute denial,
While indulgence in the emptiness - towards a contradiction.
Chattering and thinking -
The more we indulge in them,
The farther we move from the truth:
Hence, enough discussion and words,
Nothing can tie us down nowhere.
When we return to the ESSENCE,
We discover the meaning.
When we chase after external objects,
We loose our ability to distinguish.
As soon as a person reaches internal enlightenment,
He moves beyond the emptiness of the surrounding world.
The changes in appearance, that happen in our world,
Seem real due to ignorance,
Don't try to find the truth,
Simply drop your preconceptions and opinions.
Drop all duality, avoid it completely.
As soon as truth and lie appear,
The mind begins to loose itself in doubt.
There is two, because there is one,
But don't look for stability even in that ONE:
When the mind is calm,
Nothing in the world can hurt you.
When things don't bother you,
It's almost like they don't exist.
When the mind is tranquil,
It's almost like it doesn't exist.
The subject relaxes, when the object disappears.
And the object disappears, when the subject is relaxed.
Object is an object for the subject,
And subject is a subject for the object.
Know this, behind relativity of one to the other,
Hides the one pure emptiness.
In this emptiness, two is seen as one,
And every one of two holds all diversity of things.
When absent the division between ''this'' and ''that'',
How can one have a one sided point of view?
The Great Path is full of tranquility and patience.
There is nothing easy and nothing hard.
Side paths bring doubts,
And the faster we travel them, the slower we reach the goal.
Attachment knows no limits,
It will surely take one on the wrong path.
Let everything move as it moves - do not fight it,
The essence of things will not change because of it.
Obey the nature of things, and you will be in harmony with the path.
You will feel light and free.
But if your thoughts will be attached to something,
You will lose the sight of truth,
And your mind will become heavier, lazier and weaker.
Unhealthy thoughts bother the Soul,
While the essence approaches things one-sidedly and full of joy.
If you want to walk the path of Oneness,
Do not hold preconceptions about the six sense objects.
If a person has no such preconceptions,
Then he fills himself with enlightenment:
The wise exists in the inaction,
While the blind tires himself,
Although in Dharma there are no possessions,
Human beings, due to ignorance, attache to separate objects.
It is the reason that gives birth to illusion.
Is it not the sharpest of all contradictions?
Ignorance gives birth to duality of action and inaction:
The enlightened have no sympathy or antipathy.
All forms of duality are product of a lost reason.
They look like visions in the air.
So why hold on to them?
Gain and loss, good and evil -
Say good bye to them once and for all!
If you will always be awake,
Dreams will disappear all by themselves.
If the reason exists in it's oneness,
Myriad of things seem all like one.
When the deep mystery of oneness is realized,
We instantly forget all the outside obstacles:
When we see all the countless things in their oneness,
We return to the essence and remain ourselves.
Forget ''how'' and ''why'', and you will reach
The state of mind, comparable to nothing:
Movement in calmness is not movement,
And calmness in movement is not calmness.
When duality disappears,
Then even the Oneness stops being the oneness.
The essence of things is not tied down by any laws.
Reason, in harmony with the path,
Is the principle of bliss.
In it reins tranquility,
And has no place for indecisiveness:
The true belief will rise in it with all it's primal glory.
For it there is nothing to keep or remember, -
Everything shines from inside and swims in clear emptiness:
There is no trouble, no tension, no wasting energy -
Here is the abundance no accessible to the mind,
Abundance higher then all imagination.
In the great kingdom of the truth,
There exists neither ''I'' nor ''not I''.
If you ask to describe this condition exactly,
then possible to say ''not two''.
In that condition all is ONE,
All that exists is included in it:
The wise of all lands reach total belief in it.
Such total belief is not limited by time and space.
One moment and a thousand year - is ONE:
Whatever the form of things, existence or nonexistence,
their essence is shown in all.
Infinitely small can be infinitely big,
When the external conditions are forgotten:
Infinitely big can be infinitely small,
When object limits disappear.
That which is, and that which is not - ONE:
That which is not, and that which is - also ONE:
But don't stay too long where that is not.
One in all, and all in one -
If that is realized,
Then don't let your imperfection bother you.
True mind - is undivided,
And that which is undivided - is the true mind.
Words cannot describe it.
For it is not connected to past, present or future.
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