Teachings From Ancient Vietnamese Zen Masters – 180
75 Urgently Practice
If you practitioner have enough eyes, you must urgently reflect,
transform your body, leap out of the cycle of birth and death, cut
instantly the net of sensuous desire. Male or female, you can practice
the Way; wise or foolish, you will have a place to succeed. While you
don’t understand the Buddha’s mind and Patriarch’s intention, first keep
the precepts and chant the sutras. Until you see that Buddha is also
voidness and Patriarch is also emptiness, you understand that there is
not any precept truly needed to be kept and there is not any sutra truly
needed to be chanted.
Then you realize that this illusionary form is also the True Form and this
unholy body is also the Buddha Body. Then you will transform the six
consciousnesses into the six supernatural powers, convert the eight
afflictions into the eight freedoms. So it is said; but when you get into
this bodily form, it is very difficult to get away.
TRẦN THÁI TÔNG (1218 - 1277)
(COMMENT: The famous King Tran Thai Tong led Vietnam in several
years of military victories. Later he entered a temple, became a monk,
and left many remarkable writings about the Way of Zen.)
