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Bleak as it may seem
Tick tock of the mundane
Hides fertile silence
That gives life
To beautiful words
Alluring melodies
Elegant shapes of paint
Ignore all that moves
In this moment
Its camouflage is lost
There you shall find
Your masterpiece

Michael Robert Lawrence

You can see the moon’s brightness,
Illuminating all under heaven.
Its round radiance suspended in the Great Void,
Is lustrous, pure and ethereal.
Others say it waxes and wanes;
That which I see is eternal, never declining.
With an aura like the Mani pearl,
Its brilliance knows no day or night.

- Shide (8th c)

Autumn’s colors dropping from branches
In masses of falling leaves,
Cold clouds bringing rain
Into the crannies of the mountains:
Everyone was born with the same sort of eyes
Why do mine keep seeing things as Zen koans?

- Dogen

We are as the flute, and the music in us is from thee;
we are as the mountain and the echo in us is from thee.

We are as pieces of chess engaged in victory and defeat:
our victory and defeat is from thee, O thou whose qualities are comely!

Who are we, O Thou soul of our souls,
that we should remain in being beside thee?

We and our existences are really non-existence;
thou art the absolute Being which manifests the perishable.

We all are lions, but lions on a banner:
because of the wind they are rushing onward from moment to moment.

Their onward rush is visible, and the wind is unseen:
may that which is unseen not fail from us!

Our wind whereby we are moved and our being are of thy gift;
our whole existence is from thy bringing into being.

Rumi

Favor and disgrace are meaningless;
What’s the use of contending?
Drifting clouds do not obstruct
The shining moonlight.
Let the ox and horse be called,
To both I can respond,
But how could I let a speck of dust
Into the city of mind?

- Wu Cailuan

With the true emptiness of non-action,
I nap on a stone pillow among rocks.
Do you ask me what is my power?
A single tattered robe through life.

- Naong (1320-1376)

Desirelessness comes on its own when desire is recognized as false. You need not struggle with desire. Ultimately, it is an urge to happiness, which is natural as long as there is sorrow. Only see that there is no happiness in what you desire. Each pleasure is wrapped in pain. You soon discover that you cannot have one without the other. ~Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

“To behold the Buddha nature
You must wait
For the right moment
And the right conditions.
When the time comes,
You are awakened
As if from a dream.
You realize that what
You have found is your own
And doesn’t come from anywhere outside.”

- Pai-Chang (720-814)

To nurture essence,
First quiet the mind.
Why bother seeking skill
With thread and needle anymore?
When you lead the iron ox
To go along with you,
Then you reveal the depth
Of boundless wisdom’s deeds.

- Fan Yunqiao

The Place Where We Are Right
by Yehuda Amichai

From the place where we are right
Flowers will never grow
In the spring.

The place where we are right
Is hard and trampled
Like a yard.

But doubts and loves
Dig up the world
Like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
Where the ruined
House once stood.

The mountain is silent,
The water without form.
A clear breeze has no price,
The bright noon no lover.
Here, after a fashion,
I will grow old in peace.

- Song Hon (1535-1598)

Though the mystic mechanism
Is right before us,
We need to look for it;
Only when you set eyes
On it do you know
The depths of the ultimate design.
The study of essence
Can hardly be directed by words;
When the conditions of karma are wrapped up,
You see the real true mind.

- Tang Guangzhen

You need companions to travel
To the Isle of Immortals
It is hard to climb
The azure cliffs alone.
If you take dead stillness for refinement,
The weak water brimming
Will lack a convenient boat.

- Sun Bu-er

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

By Robert Frost

The mind should be kept
Independent of any thoughts
That arise within it.
If the mind depends upon anything,
It has no sure haven.

- The Diamond Sutra