Teachings From Ancient Vietnamese Zen Masters – 104
45 Song of the Buddha Mind
Buddha! Buddha! Buddha! Impossible to be seen!
Mind! Mind! Mind! Impossible to be told!
When the mind arises, Buddha is born.
When Buddha is gone, the mind vanishes.
There is never a place where the mind is gone while Buddha remains.
There is never a time when Buddha is gone while the mind remains.
If you want to understand the mind of Buddha and the mind of birth
and death, just wait for Maitreya and ask him.
There was no mind anciently; there is no Buddha now.
All unenlightened beings, holy beings, human beings, heavenly beings
are just like flashes of lightning.
The mind nature is neither right nor wrong.
The Buddha nature is neither real nor unreal.
Suddenly arising, suddenly ceasing, anciently leaving, now coming,
you all waste your time with thinking and discussing.
In that way, you would bury the Vehicle of the Patriarchs
and cause the devils to hound in the house.
If you want to find the mind, stop searching outward.
The nature of the mind is naturally still and void.
Nirvana and the birth-death cycles are illusionary shackles.
The fetters and Enlightenment are hollow oppositions.
The mind is Buddha; Buddha is the mind.
That profound meaning shines bright since endless time.
When spring comes, the spring flowers blossom naturally.
When autumn comes, the autumn waters reflects the sorrow clearly.
Removing the false mind, and keeping the true nature
is similar to a person who searches for the reflections and misses the
mirror. He doesn’t know that reflections come from the mirror, and that
the false appear from the truth.
That the false come is neither real nor unreal.
That the mirror reflects is neither wrong nor right.
