The Faith Mind Poem

With palms together,

Good Morning Everyone,

HSIN HSIN MING

verses of the faith mind
by Sengtsan
Third Zen Patriarch of China (d. 606 CE)

The Great Way is not difficult for those who have no preferences When love and hate are both absent everything becomes clear and undisguised Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If you wish to see the truth then hold no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind. When the deep meaning of things are not understood the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

Emotions can and do cloud our minds.  When we allow our preferences to act as filters we only see filtered material. From a Zen point of view, then, life should be lived deeply in the raw. Does this mean we should not love or hate?  No. It does mean that we should be aware that such emotions are of our own making and act as blinders to reality. It is this distortion that creates discord and disturbs our peace.

The Way is perfect like vast space where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess. Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject that we do not see the true nature of things. Live neither in the entanglement of outer things, nor in inner feelings of emptiness. Be serene in the oneness of things and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves. When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity your very effort fills you with activity. As long as you remain in one extreme or the other you will never know Oneness.

When we live in direct experience, unfiltered by basic assumptions, we live in clear mind. We call this mind, vast emptiness. It is a mind that is fully aware of the universe's interdependence and interconnection, but not caught in it. When one assumes a posture of Zazen duality falls away, naturally, and of its own accord.  We cfannot will it so. When we think we are right, we are wrong. when we think something is true, its false. The Great Way is complete oneness.

Be well