Teachings From Ancient Vietnamese Zen Masters – 166
68 Stone Horse
The stone horse shows crazy teeth,
eats young rice leaves, neighs through days and months,
and lopes along with people on the road.
Riding on the [stone] horse, the man does not walk.
ĐẠI XẢ (1120 - 1180)
(COMMENT: Can a stone horse show teeth, eat grass, and neigh all the
time?
Even if you do all things like a crazy horse, the Buddha Nature inside
your mind is unmoved like stone. Be careful here: the Buddha Nature is
truly emptiness in nature.
Buddha Nature is just like the water holding all the waves and never
away from the waves, and just like the emptiness of the mirror holding
all the images and never away from the images.
Seeing the Buddha Nature? You can see a thought, but you can not see
the nature of the mind. And when you see a thought, don’t just see the
tail of the thought; in other words, don’t just see the tail of the ox.
Observe the unborn mind, and see the land before a thought arises.
That is Zen.)
