Ryokan

The wind is still, but blossoms fall,
Birds sing in the quiet of the mountain.
This is Kannon’s wondrous wisdom:
Ah!

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Gako

My heart is like the autumn moon
Pure and unsullied
On the blue green pool
No this comparison is not right,
How in the world can I explain it?

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Confucius

Shall I tell you what it is to know?
To say you know when you know,
And to say you do not, when you do not,
That is knowledge.

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Ryokan

Humans born into this floating world
Quickly become like the roadside dust:
At dawn small children,
By sunset already grown white-haired,
Without inner understanding,
They struggle without cease.
I ask the children of the universe:
For what reason do you pass this way?

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Han Shan

The everyday way is fine for me.
Like vines wrapped in mist along rocky ravines,
I am free in a vast wilderness,
Drifting, drifting with my friends, the white clouds.
There is a path, but it does not lead
To the world of men;
Mindless, there is nothing to arouse my thoughts.
Alone at night, I sit on a bed of stone,
While [...]

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Avatamsaka Sutra

As mind is, so is the Buddha;
As the Buddha is, so are living beings.
One should know that the Buddha’s and mind’s
Essential nature is boundless.

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Avatamsaka Sutra

Living beings falsely discriminate,
That is the Buddha, this is the world.
For the one who comprehends the Dharma-nature,
There is neither Buddha nor world.

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Jog

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Ryokan

Finishing a day of begging,
I return home through the green mountains.
The setting sun is hidden behind the western cliffs
And the moon shines weakly on the stream below.
I stop by a rock and wash my feet.
Lighting some incense, I sit peacefully in zazen.
Again a one-man brotherhood of monks;
Ah…how quickly the stream of time sweeps by.

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