16.) About the koan, you should single out the point where you have been in doubt all your life and put it upon your forehead. It is a holy place or a commonplace one? Is it an entity or a non-entity? Press your question to its very end. Do not be afraid of plunging yourself into vacuity; find out what it is that cherishes the senses of fear. Is it a void or it is not?
15.) Because we are running after objects, we lose track of the original mind and are tormented by the threatening objective world, regarding it as good or bad, true or false, agreeable or disagreeable. We are thus slaves of things and circumstances. The Buddha advises that our real position ought to be exactly the opposite. Let things follow us and await our commands. Let the true self give directions in all of our dealings with the world.
14.) Better to emancipate your mind than your body; when the mind is emancipated, the body is free, when both body and mind are emancipated, even gods and spirits ignore worldly power
13.) It is one’s own mind that creates illusions. Is this not the greatest self-contradiction?
12.) In the higher realm of true suchness, there is neither ‘self’ nor ‘other’: when direct identification is sought, we can only say ‘not two’.
11.) You should know that so far as Buddha-nature is concerned, there is no difference between an enlightened man and an ignorant one. What makes the difference is that one realizes it and one doesn’t.
10.) Our original nature is, in the highest truth, void, silent, pure; it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy – and that is all. Enter deeply into it by awakening to it yourself. That which is before you is, in all its fullness, utterly complete.
9.) When the deep mystery of one suchness is fathomed, all of a sudden we forget the external entanglements; when ten thousand things are viewed in their oneness, we return to the origin and remain where we have ever been.
8.) The most ordinary things in our daily life hide some deep meaning that is yet most plain and explicit: only our eyes need to see where there is a meaning. Unless this eye is opened there will be nothing to learn from Zen.
7.)What is the same as what is not, what is not is the same as what is; where this state of things fails to obtain, indeed, no tarrying there.
6.)What we have to do is purify our mind so that the six Vijnanas (aspects of consciousness), in passing through the six gates (sense organs) will neither be defiled by nor attached to, the six sense-objects. When our mind works freely without hindrance and is at liberty to ‘come’ and ‘go’ we attain Samadhi or prajna (liberation). Such a state is called the function of ‘thoughtlessness’. But to refrain from thinking of anything, so that all thoughts are suppressed, is to be Dharma-ridden and is an erroneous view.
5.) The human mind discriminates itself from the things that appear to be outside itself without first realizing that it has first created these things within its own mind. This has been going on from beginningless time and the delusion has become firmly fixed within the mind and even adheres things to themselves.
4.) This absolute reason is beyond quickening [time] and extending [space], for if one instant is ten thousand years; whether we see it or not, it is manifest everywhere in all the ten quarters.
3.) When we return to the root, we gain the meaning; when we pursue external objects we lose reason. The moment we are enlightened within, we go beyond the voidness of a world confronting us.
2.) There is nothing difficult about the Great Way, but avoid choosing! Only when you neither love nor hate, does it appear in all clarity. A hair’s breadth of deviation from it and a deep gulf is set between heaven and earth. If you want to get hold of what it looks like, do not be for or against anything. The conflict of longing and loathing – this is the disease of the mind. Not knowing the profound meaning of things, we disturb our original peace of mind to no purpose.
1.) Everything is mind-made and has no significance apart from mind. As people come to understand this fact, they are able to remove all delusions and there is an end to all mental disturbances forever.
Wray, W. (2006). Sayings and Tales of Zen Buddhism. New Jersey: Chartwell Books, Inc.