![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/81\/2023\/10\/Sengcan.jpg\")
<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Japanese Zen community marks today, the 15th of October, as the anniversary of the day in the year 606, when Jianzhi Sengcan<\/a> returned to that mystery from which all of us come and, as with that ancient venerable, to which all of us return.<\/p>\n In our Zen traditions Sengcan (Seng-ts\u2019an in the older Pinyin transliteration and Sosan in Japanese) is the third Chinese ancestor, inheriting the dharma<\/a> from Huike who inherited it from Bodhidharma.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t really know a lot about him, the scant details of his life are recounted in the Lamp anthologies. His name is mentioned in the seventh century Further Biographies of Eminent Monks<\/em> and the eighth century Records of the Transmission of the Dharma Treasure<\/em>, but most details about him come from the thirteenth century Compendium of Five Lamps<\/em>.<\/p>\n He is also traditionally named as the author of the Xinxin Ming<\/em>, an early classic of the Zen way. More broadly it can be considered one of the great hymns of nonduality. The scholarly community generally believes Sengcan cannot have been the author as the poem almost certainly was composed considerably after his life.<\/p>\n Still, wrapped in mystery, we are invited to celebrate the monk and the poem on this day.<\/p>\n That poem, the title variously translated as Faith in Mind<\/em>, or On Trust in the Heart<\/em>, or Have Faith in Your Mind<\/em>, or \u00a0a Song of Enlightenment<\/em> has invited numerous attempts<\/a> at rendering into English. Last year I shared Stanley Lombardo<\/a>\u2018s version. Today, Burton Watson\u2019s\u2026<\/p>\n Inscription on Trust in the Mind<\/em><\/strong> The highest way asks nothing hard, With the smallest degree of differentiation, though, Where acceptance and rejection vie for mastery, The Way is round, a vast emptiness, Never tag after the realm of entanglements; Mind moves, you return it to stillness, And where unity no longer reigns, Much talk, much worry, Return to the root and you\u2019ll grasp the meaning, The shifts and turns of the Emptiness Dualism is no place to dwell; Two come about because of One, The viewer disappears along with the scene, If you wish to understand both, When you perceive things as neither coarse nor fine, People of petty outlook are fretful, doubting; Leave it! Let things take their course! Fetter your thoughts and you turn aside from truth, If you want to grasp the One Vehicle, Wise men take no special action; Using mind to stir up more mind\u2014 All these pairs of opposites Gain, loss, right, wrong\u2014 When the mind refrains from differentiation, View the ten thousand phenomena as equal Arrest motion, and motion ceases to exist; In the ultimate realm, the farthest extreme, All fret, all doubt cleansed In empty brightness your light shines of itself, The Dharma-realm of Suchness Where there are \u201cnot two,\u201d all is uniform, In this Source, no long or short time spans: The tiniest is one with the huge, Being\u2014this is nonbeing, One\u2014this is all, When trust and mind are not two, Here\u2019s a lovely talk on the poem by Chan master Simon Child.<\/em><\/p>\n
\nby Seng-ts\u2019an
\nTranslation by\u00a0Burton Watson<\/p>\n
\nbut detests any picking or choosing.
\nOnly do without love and hatred
\nand all will come clear and open.<\/p>\n
\nthings grow farther apart than heaven and earth!
\nIf you want the Way right here before you,
\nhave nothing to do with assent or dissent.<\/p>\n
\nthis is sickness to the mind.
\nWithout comprehending the Dark Meaning
\nyou strive in vain to still your thoughts.<\/p>\n
\nnothing lacking, nothing left over.
\nOnly because you choose and reject
\ndoes it cease to be so.<\/p>\n
\ndo not dwell in Emptiness either.
\nWhen mind achieves unity in repose,
\nall else will vanish of itself.<\/p>\n
\nbut thus stilled, it moves all the more.
\nWhile you persist in two extremes,
\nhow can you understand unity?<\/p>\n
\nboth extremes forfeit their merit.
\nCast aside being and you find it swamping you;
\npursue Emptiness and you stray farther from it still.<\/p>\n
\nand you\u2019re less than ever able to face things.
\nBe done with talk, and be done with worry,
\nand there\u2019s no place you cannot pass through.<\/p>\n
\nbut trail after lights and you lose their source.
\nFor the moment shine your own light\u2014
\nthen you can master the Emptiness before you.<\/p>\n
\nall spring from deluded views.
\nNo need to go seeking truth\u2014
\nsimply put an end to such views!<\/p>\n
\ntake care, never go that way!
\nNo sooner do we have \u201cright\u201d and \u201cwrong\u201d
\nthan the mind is lost in confusion.<\/p>\n
\nbut don\u2019t cling to the One either!
\nSo long as the mind does not stir,
\nthe ten thousand things stay blameless;
\nno blame, no phenomena,
\nno stirring, no mind.<\/p>\n
\nthe scene follows the viewer into oblivion,
\nfor scene becomes scene only through the viewer,
\nviewer becomes viewer because of the scene.<\/p>\n
\nsee them as from the first a single Emptiness,
\na single Emptiness in which both are identical,
\nembracing all the ten thousand forms alike.<\/p>\n
\nhow could you favor one above another?
\nThe Great Way is the soul of latitude,
\nnothing about it easy, nothing about it hard.<\/p>\n
\nthe more they hurry, the more they fall behind.
\nSticklers always miss the proper measure,
\ncertain to set off on wrong roads.<\/p>\n
\nIn the end there\u2019s neither going nor staying.
\nFollow your nature, blend with the Way,
\nbe free and easy, a stranger to all care.<\/p>\n
\nsinking in darkness, no longer well.
\nNo longer well, you wear out your spirit\u2014
\nwhat use to covet one thing, shun another?<\/p>\n
\nnever despise the six senses.
\nSo long as the six senses are not despised,
\nyou\u2019re at one with correct perception.<\/p>\n
\nfools fashion their own shackles.
\nThe Law knows no \u201cthis\u201d Law or \u201cthat,\u201d
\nyet you persist in your witless attachments.<\/p>\n
\nwhat grosser error than this?
\nDelusion breeds concepts such as \u201ctranquil\u201d or \u201cdisordered\u201d;
\nenlightenment tells you there\u2019s no good or bad.<\/p>\n
\nspring from faulty reckoning.
\nDreams, phantoms, empty flowers\u2014
\nwhy trouble trying to grasp them?<\/p>\n
\nthrow them away at once!
\nWhen eyes do not close in sleep,
\ndreams vanish of themselves.<\/p>\n
\nthe ten thousand phenomena are a single Suchness,
\na single Suchness dark in entity,
\nlumpish, forgetful of entanglements.<\/p>\n
\nand all will revert to naturalness.
\nThe very basis of their being wiped out,
\nimpossible to rate one above the other!<\/p>\n
\nmove stillness and stillness is gone.
\nBut when neither comes into being,
\nhow can even a single thing exist?<\/p>\n
\nnorms and standards no longer hold.
\nOnce achieve true impartiality of mind
\nand purposive actions will cease completely.<\/p>\n
\nin the harmony and directness of true faith.
\nNothing whatsoever remains,
\nnothing to be thought of, to recall.<\/p>\n
\nwithout labor to mind or sinew,
\nthere in the place past reckoning,
\nbeyond the ken of cognition or feeling.<\/p>\n
\nknows no \u201cother,\u201d no \u201cself.\u201d
\nIf you desire to approach and enter it,
\nonly say to yourself \u201cnot two.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nnothing not enfolded there.
\nWise ones of the ten directions
\nall make their way to this Source.<\/p>\n
\none moment is ten thousand years;
\nno \u201chere\u201d or \u201cnot here,\u201d
\nall ten directions right before your eyes.<\/p>\n
\nall boundaries and realms wiped out.
\nThe largest is one with the tiny,
\nextremes no longer to be seen.<\/p>\n
\nnonbeing\u2014this is being.
\nAny view at variance with this
\nmust not be held!<\/p>\n
\nall\u2014this is one.
\nWhen you can see in this manner,
\nwhat worries will not fade?<\/p>\n
\nnot two, trust and mind,
\nthere all words break off,
\nno past, no future, no now.<\/p>\n