HAVE FAITH IN YOUR MIND
A Gatha by the 3rd Ch’an Patriarch of China
It is not hard to realize your Mind, which should not be an object of your
choice.
When you throw like and not like away, you'll be clear about it.
A slight deviation from it creates a gulf as deep as that which lies between
heaven and earth.
If you want Mind to manifest itself, be neither for nor against a thing, for
This is contention, a disease that afflicts the Mind.
If you ignore its profundity, you can never practice stillness.
Like the great void, it is Perfect and lacks nothing, nor has any excess.
If you discriminate, you will miss its suchness.
Cling not to external causes, nor stay in the void.
Differentiation ceases if you can be impartial.
Stillness comes when all disturbances are stopped, cling to stillness is
Also a mistake.
If you cling to opposites, how will you know the One?
If you do not recognize One Mind, two opposites will lead you nowhere.
To avoid what IS means to cling yet to what IS NOT, to cling to what IS NOT
Means to fall back on what IS.
The more you talk and think, the further you are from it.
When you halt all speech and thought, you will find it everywhere.
If you believe success comes with returning all things to their source,
You will still be clinging to its function.
The instant that you look within,
You surpass your contemplation of the Void,
Which is always changing because of your discrimination of views.
Seek not the real, but lay your false views down.
Avoid both he real and the false,
And never search for either.
Once you begin to choose between right and wrong,
You will become confused and lose your Mind.
All opposites arise from the One Mind, which must not be cling to.
If the One Mind is not disturbed, all things will then be harmless.
When all things are harmless, then they will cease to be,
Mind that does not stir does not exist.
Subjects that are separated from their objects vanish.
Objects are caused by subjects and depend on their existence.
If you would understand dualities,
Know that they spring from Absolute Voidness.
The absolute and all dualities are the same,
And from the same do all things originate.
When you do not choose between the course and the fine, all prejudices die.
Since the Great Mind embraces all, it is neither difficult nor easy to
Realize it.
In their distrust the ignorant waver between hesitation and eagerness.
If you grasp at it, you will be wrong and will have fallen in the way of
Heretics.
If you lay it down, it will neither stay nor go.
Unite your nature with the Way, and you will be free of troubles.
Clinging leads to separation from the real and leads to confusion is useless
And only wearies the mind.
If you want to know the One, do not reject the data of the six senses.
If they are not rejected they are the same as Enlightenment.
The wise man is non-active. The ignorant bind themselves.
Clinging comes from delusion but all things are the same at heart.
If you use the mind to seek itself, this is a grave mistake. Delusion brings
Stillness and disturbance; Enlightenment is beyond all good and all evil.
All pairs of opposites come from discrimination.
Dreams, illusions and flowers in the sky are not worth attachment.
Gain and loss, right and wrong; these should be laid down at once.
If you do not close your eyes in sleep, all dreams disappear.
If you do not discriminate, you will see all things as they are.
Profound is this state of suchness, it is lofty and beyond illusions.
If things are not thought different, they will return to their nature.
When they disappear, the Mind is beyond comparison.
When it stops moving there is not more disturbance, when all motion stops,
Stillness also disappears.
When opposites disappear, where then can the One Mind be?
When you search for the Ultimate, you find that it is beyond patterns.
In this impartial mind, duality has vanished.
When distrust ceases, your faith will be complete.
When all is thrown away, there is nothing to remember.
The Mind that is now pure radiates and is not tired.
Since it is beyond discrimination, it cannot be understood by that which
Knows and feels.
Such is the absolute state, free from self and others.
If you would be one with it, avoid all duality.
Neither inside nor outside is the non-dual and it is the same throughout.
Sages everywhere have laid claim to this teaching, which is beyond time, long
Or short, for a thought last for ten thousand years!
It neither IS nor IS NOT, for everywhere is here.
The smallest equals the largest, for it is not confined by space.
The largest equals the smallest, for it is neither within nor without.
IS and IS NOT are the same, for what IS NOT equals IS.
If you cannot awaken to this, then you should change your ways.
Now One is ALL and All is One.
If you can awaken to this, why worry if you have not yet found it?
Just believe that the Mind is non-dual, for your Faith in it is not divided.
In it there is no room for words and speech; is has no past, no present or
No future.
