Tag Archives: zen art

carving bodhidharma

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Mind is like the wood or stone from which a person carves an image. If he carves a dragon or a tiger, and seeing it fears it, he is like a stupid person creating a picture of hell and then afraid to face it. If he does not fear it, then his unnecessary thoughts will vanish. Part of the mind produces sight, sound, taste, odor and sensibility, and from them raises greed, anger and ignorance with al] their accompanying likes and dislikes.

Bodhidharma

Have a good weekend staring down the carvings of your fears!

this very place

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Hakuin’s Song of Meditation

transl. by Stephen Addiss, from Zen Sourcebook

All living beings are originally Buddhas, just like water and ice:
Without water there is no ice, and outside living beings there is no Buddha.
Not knowing how near it is, people seek it outside themselves – what a pity!
Like someone in the middle of water crying out in thirst,
Or the child of a rich man wandering around like a beggar,
We are bound to the six worlds because we are lost in the darkness of ignorance;
Following dark path after dark path, when shall we escape birth and death?

…

Boundless as the sky, radiant as the moon is the four-fold wisdom,
At this moment, what do you lack?  Nirvana is right in front of you,
This very place is the Lotus Land, this body is the body of Buddha.

And Hakuin’s final words on practice:

“Don’t just stand there watching; get going!”*

Thank you for practising,

Genju

*from Cleary, Secrets of the Blue Cliff Record, 27.  Quoted in The Sound of One Hand by Addiss & Seo