From the beginning, all beings are Buddha;
Like water and ice, without water no ice,
Outside us, no Buddhas.
How near the Truth, yet how far we seek!
Like one in water crying, "I thirst",
Like the son of a rich man
Wandering poor on this earth,
We endlessly circle the Six Worlds.
From dark path to dark path
We've wandered in darkness.
How can we be free from the wheel of Samsara?
The Perfection of freedom is Zazen-Samadhi,
Beyond exaltation, beyond all our praises,
The pure Mahayana.
Observing the precepts, repentance and giving,
The countless good deeds, and the Way of Right Living,
All flow from this Zen.
Even one meditation extinguishes evil;
It purifies karma, dissolving obstruction.
Then where are the dark paths to lead us astray?
The Pure Lotus Land is not far away.
Hearing this Truth, heart humble and grateful,
To praise and embrace it, to practice its wisdom,
Brings unending blessings, brings mountains of merit.
But if we turn directly, and prove our True Nature,
That true Self is no-self,
Our own Self is no-self,
We stand beyond ego and past clever words.
Then the gate to the oneness of cause-and-effect is thrown open:
Not two, and not three,
Straight ahead runs the Way.
Now our form is no-form,
So in coming and going we never leave home.
Now our thought is no-thought,
So our dancing and songs are the voice of the Dharma.
How bright and transparent the moonlight of Wisdom!
What is there outside us, what is there we lack?
Nirvana is openly shown to our eyes.
This earth where we stand is the Pure Lotus Land,
And this very body, the body of Buddha!
('Zazen Wasan' - Song of Zazen by Hakuin)
1 comment:
Hakuin was one of the most important Japanese Zen masters of the Rinzai school. He is often referred to as the father of modern Rinzai Zen, since he gave new impetus to the Rinzai school which had been gradually deteriorating since the 14th century and reformed it. He systematized koan training and emphasized once again the importance of zazen (sitting in absorption) the practice of which had been more and more eclipsed by intellectual preoccupation with Zen writings.
Sugiyama Iwajiro, known to posterity as the Zen Master Hakuin Ekaku, was born on January 19, 1686, in Hara, a small coastal village situated at the foot of Mt. Fuji on the Tokkaido Road between Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto. Hakuin was born into a time and place where the established religion had lost its life. The Zen of Bodhidharma, of the Sixth Patriarch, and of Rinzai had become the court religion of the samurai. Hakuin was to fan the dying fire of the true Zen so effectively during the eighty-three years of his life that the Rinzai sect remains a living Dharma to this day, and all modern Masters of the school trace their lineage directly to him.
In his famous praise of zazen ("Hakuin Zenji zazen-wasan" frequently chanted in Zen Monasteries of Japan), he extolls the importance of "sitting in meditation" for the actualization of enlightenment, which is the goal of the way of Zen
http://www.terebess.hu/zen/hakuin1.html#2
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