A: Directly realizing original mind nature B: Removing all doubt about this nature C: Resting without grasping in the original state

Master Keizan arrived by leaky boat./Manjusri rides in on a golden lion./Sujata is smiling in the river, wringing out her wet hair.




Unthought cannot be moved.



"I possess the true Dharma eye, the marvelous mind of Nirvana, the true form of the formlessm the subtle Dharma gate that does not rest on words or letters but is a special transmission outside of the scriptures."


"Good sons, all sentient beings' various illusions are born from the perfectly enlightened marvelous mind of the Tathāgata -- just like the sky-flowers come to exist from the sky." -The Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment

Tao chu'an says: "You can't trade gold for gold. Fish don't bite on a cold winter evening. Forget the empty boat and bring back the moon."


"Put strength into it and abandon conceit."

That bamboo stalk doesn't remember being hit by a pebble and didn't hear any click.




Hearing is emptiness.
Seeing is light.



一卽一切一切卽一 "One is all and all is one." from the Dictionary of Chinese Buddhist Terms: http://bit.ly/BSgrP

"What's left when Manjusri's flaming sword cuts away all discursive thought?" "Falanghina wine with octopus, oranges, and cannellini beans!"

Many people believe Zen is against words. But in the Chinese Zen literature, there are many cases of people getting Awakened by words.


Buddha, supposedly, called the shining primordial Awareness he realized in an instant "No-Self." Why not?

The forest yogins in the Upanishads called it "Self." Why not?

The yogins and yoginis of the Kashmir area between about 600-1300 AD called this Awareness Shiva, and Energy they called Shakti. Why not?



When you see a movie, it's in 2 flat dimensions. Only your mind gives it the 3rd dimension of depth. Depth is simply not "there."

Similarly, when you live your life, it's in 3 dimensions, and only your mind gives it the 4th dimension of time. Time is just not "there."

Imagine going to a planet that's so cold there's no water, just ice, and telling people there that ice is "really" a flowing stuff, water.

Practice #13 Envision in detail your body returning completely to the Five Great Elements (Water, Earth, Wind, Fire, and Space). What now?

Practice #4: Whenever you experience anything, shift your attention from the experience to the empty backdrop on which it appears.

"The Lotus Sutra says: Try to shovel out the shit from your mind that has been piling up for the last twenty years or so." -Huang Po


Stop thinking in words right now. Can you do it?


In Chan or Zen there is strictly speaking no "content" to teach, nothing to learn, nothing to remember.

Gratitude to women -- not only do they give everything birth, they are really the supreme gurus.

In #Zen we say that Shakyamuni was a slippery old con man and Manjusri made a living scraping up donkey shit.

"Old woman Wang sells melons; she sells and advertises them too."


Spontaneous mind is whole mind.




Go right into the depths of your body and find the clear vibration that makes it live.

Then anytime you like you can shiver with with delight.

Like a bee crawling ecstatically in the pollen soaked pistils of a California orange poppy.


The next time you even think about getting enlightenment, go and fill a pail with cold water and dump it on your head.

This is my "Bucket of Ice Water Zen Teaching Method" which has never failed to awaken the clueless.


I think it's great that so many people are signing up for a religion founded by a rich man who abandoned his wife and infant child to beg.

Most people, if they actually knew someone who did that, wouldn't be able to sleep for the indignation. "What a fucking jerk!"

"He did what? He just left his wife with a young son and wandered off into the woods to meditate? Forget that fucking jerk."

Buddha refused to help his kingdom when it was attacked and destroyed by a rival kingdom. As a result, he got a bad headache for three days.


"Transmigration is imaginary. It's all an illusion, a perverted dream born of attachment to this or that form, which is really nothing at all but a baseless appearance in the naked void.
The pure mind isn't luminous. It isn't anything that can be spoken of and if I speak of it I am putting words and images in place of your realization. Look into yourself and your consciousness every day, achieve kensho, break through Heaven and Earth, empty all the hells, and become a buddha, like a shrill note on the bamboo flute or a bell clanging in the empty sky. Absolutely unborn.
The Clear Witness, the Unstained Observer, is just the magical and wondrous function of the original mind, which is rootless. It is identical to naked space in which all phenomena simply appear. It is not Light, it is Lighting, and the Lighting comes from nowhere, and has nowhere to go. It is supremely still. Nothing can move or trouble it. That's why it is called the Tathagata. It does not take part in the world of delusions where impermanence rules and where every form is ultimately revealed as barren and empty.
As for suffering, it is suffering to be deluded into thinking you are an independent person living in an objective world where there is gain and loss, where there are goals to be achieved and failures to bitterly regret. Luckily, you aren't that, you never were, and you never will be, because past mind can't be grasped, nor can present or future mind.
Nothing has ever been grasped at by anyone, and nobody has ever suffered delusion or attained enlightenment, and no buddha has ever appeared in the world to teach anyone anything. Just realize This and you will be the Only Honored One Under Heaven and Above Earth.
Either the mind is made from bottom up causality emerging from matter, or it is a lightning-like function that has nothing to do with any phenomena except to cognize them. It has no form, no shape, no color, no energy. Thou Art That."


What color is prajna?
How deep is dhyana?


For just one day, observe how often you are caught up in "seeing yourself" in a mental movie of some time in the future, or the past.

For just one day, observe how many times "you" begin an obsessive silent dialogue or monologue with people who are not present.


The natural state of a buddha is joy and delight; the natural state of an ordinary person is sadness, worry and anguish.


Does the greenness of the bamboo originate in the bamboo stalks, in your eyes, in the light, in your brain, or in the air?

It would be quite amazing if the three pounds of matter inside your head could remember your childhood. Sheer magic.


fine bird tracks in the wet sand

form isn't emptiness and emptiness isn't form

Desire is essentially pure.

"No mind, no buddhas, no Dharma."

great brilliant light circle


The Womb of Zen produces many different kinds of buddhas. Some don't even look like buddhas.


Chinese Zen literature doesn't speak of "Enlightenment" as necessarily a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

Instead, people are described as "experiencing something," "having a realization," "breaking through," "experiencing great illumination" --

"experiencing vast silent imageless illumination," and sometimes, usually after many false turns in the dark, "totally awakened."


Try listening intensely to trickling water. See if you can do it without your mind going away at all. If your focus moves, bring it back.

Hear how a splashing stream of water creates endless subtle sonic variations. But don't chase after them. Just listen calmly.

Everytime your mind moves, and a thought starts to pull you away from the sound of the water, insist (gently) on bringing your focus back.

This simple method of meditation is a reliable Dharma Gate, using the subtlest modality of sensing, to Pure Mind Itself.

The piercing, lonely shrill of bamboo flute at night in the deep mountains of Nagano, Japan --

What is IT that's intensely aware of your body and its movements in space, yet mysteriously, when you look for it, is found nowhere at all?

The red peony droops. White clouds soar into the sky. The sound of the night foghorn echoes the utter impermanence of all things.

No power in the whole universe could cause anything -- fire, air, water, earth -- to appear, if Consciousness were lacking.

All the senses are consciousness.