Preface to the 3rd Edition

White clouds hang over the mountains, so the poetic mind is moving.
The bright moon sinks into the water, so the poetic mind is moving.

Sowing seeds in the spring also sowing poetic mind and
harvesting in the fall also reaping poetic mind.

By grasping the worldly affairs woven from birth, aging, sickness, and death, along with fortune and misfortune,
and standing from the perspective of the transmundane,
every single instance of preaching on good and evil or morality,
and every discussion of philosophy and religion,
is an expression of the poetic mind.
Isn't this a wonderful play of life?

However, there is a poetic mind here that exist ahead of heaven and earth.
What is it?

There is a clear and distinct message here that turning goodness into evil to teach sages with the evil,
and turning evil into goodness to save all sentient beings with the goodness.
Is this not precisely the stirring of the poetic mind?

Striking the celestial realm with a single fist, it is transformed into a purgatory;
such is the causal occasion for Mañjuśrī to break into song.
Kicking the purgatory with a single foot, it is transformed into a celestial realm;
is this not the very season for Samantabhadra to perform a dance?
Those are the stirring of the poetic mind!

In the old days, some dumb guys asked to idiot Zen masters why the great master Bodhidharma come to China from India.
One of the idiot Zen masters said,
"A hair grew upon the flat, board-like teeth.", or
"It is a pine tree in front of the yard."
The master must be the highest of the idiots who stretched endlessly when pulled and shrinks to zero when let go.
Mañjuśrī and Samantabhadra subtly turned their heads, observed the idiot's those responses and smiled faintly.
Think about it!
Were dumb guys truly foolish, and was the idiot Zen master truly stupid?
Alas, it is also stirring of the poetic mind!

Although I have taken a physical form within this sahā world,
I attempt to fathom the principles of this world that are beyond the reach of contemplations,
by releasing my poetic mind, which is the original message.

Good!
We are the tremendous being not because we look through the instrument called eyes,
not because we listen through the instrument called ears,
and not because we convey our thoughts through the instrument called mouth,
but because we are the master of the world who penetrates all ten directions.

I am recalling all the seeds of cause and effect that I have already sown in the Great Void,
and gathered together the words that come to mind and revealed them one by one.
My companions call this Zen poetry, so I just follow along.

Preface to the 1st Edition

The one and only path of the law is also called the Tao(道). The Tao is neither sacred nor profane, extending in both directions without a top or bottom, permeating the ten directions. If there were distinctions of high and low, of wide and narrow, within this path, it would be a false and heretical path.

The Tao is neither deluded nor enlightened, yet without gain or loss, it is pervasive and luminous, penetrating past and present. If there were distinctions of plus and minus, of long and short, within this path, it would be a misguided path.

The Tao is neither existence nor nonexistence, yet it possesses all laws and freely controls birth and death. It is neither movement nor stillness, yet it transcends time and space, embracing the void.
If one seeks this Tao, it moves further away; if one tries to cultivate it, it becomes duller. Therefore, being exactly as you are is the Tao.

When we express this Tao through words, it is typically revealed through "song," whereas when we express through writing, it is usually manifested through "poetry." Therefore, people cherish both joyful and sad songs, and love both wise and sorrowful poems. Perhaps from these songs and poems, human culture begins to flourish, political administration is put into practice, philosophy and religion blossom in their own time, and the endless history of sentient beings is unfolding.

Life is said to be a midday dream. Perhaps it is because of the sense of impermanence. If life were all about a dream from which one can never awaken, it would be a desolate wilderness, devoid of poetry and song, devoid of any real existence. Only a lonely grave of sorrow and despair awaits, and the Tao would be nothing more than an empty phrase.

However, if the awakenable dream is the foundation of life, then it is not an empty existence, but a joyful paradise with both poetry and song. Like a lamp that never goes out and illuminates the path, the Tao would be an haven.

The Tao is born according to the person's spiritual capacity. For a deluded person who mistakes the delusional mind for the true mind and the illusionary body for the true body, they wander through a dreamlike world of illusion, swayed by birth, aging, illness, and death, oppressed by wealth, honor, poverty, and lowliness, and caught up in joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure, and are destined to drift into another dreamland of illusion again. For them life is nothing but a dream.

On the other hand, for a wise person who regains the true mind in the delusional mind, and digs out the true body in the illusional body, by breaking through the dreamlike world of illusion, they realize that birth, aging, illness, and death are just revealation, wealth, honor, poverty, and lowliness are only function, and joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure are nothing but play. Only then they will ascend to the highest Tao and sing a song of great peace. For them life is not a dream, but out of dream.

Therefore, a wise person try to know the true location of that song that he could sing all his life and never finish it, and the true location of that poem that he could recite all his life. He try to make a miracle to liberate a bunch of suffering lives from their miserable existence in a "dreamland" of their own making.

That's right. A thirsty person digs a well. The one with superior spiritual capacity who deals with life's problems, completely rejects begging, relying on others, and instead strives fiercely to create an absolutely free miracle that is accomplished through one's own true nature.

Let us define these miracles as "miracles that are not miracles," brought forth by a sublime being who illuminates the merit of the single, unique Dharma path - a path that is infinite, inexhaustible, immeasurable, and boundless - within the realm of the absoluteness, rather than the realm of relativity.

If the miracles experienced here are merely results obtained in exchange for entrusting oneself to a particular Buddha, Bodhisattva, God, or deity then they are simply acts of salvation granted in proportion to one's degree of submission and supplication. Such miracles would not constitute a true miracle brought forth through one's own pure, perfectly luminous, and upright wisdom and conduct. Therefore, miracles originating from external sources are not only impossible, but even if they were to occur, they would be nothing more than the practices of heterodoxies or deviant paths. Consequently, they lose any true value as miracles and become meaningless.

People hold this miracle that is no miracle at arm's length. Furthermore, deluded sentient beings, filled with disbelief and skepticism, refuse even to look upon it. Although there is a path to a miracle which is not a miracle, a path to freeing oneself from the chains that bind oneself and gathering the sown 'seed' of Buddha, they do not know this and are swept away by the apostasy and the heresy, wandering back and forth, looking for the minor fruits of human and heavenly beings at best. This is truly lamentable!

Living beings and Buddha are not two, delusions and Bodhi are not two, sentient and insentient are not two, birth and death are not two, heaven and hell are not two but one.

In the midst of equality, according to past attachment, karma, and cause and effect, each takes on its own form, decorates a new stage and role, and weaves a new life. That is the 'life'. It is function and play. But unaware of this profound principle, people merely flounder along an endless path without purpose or direction, repeatedly weeping and laughing, grieving and rejoicing, or becoming angry and resentful in accordance with the shifting circumstances of their environment.

....

"It is difficult to receive a human body in a hundred million kalpas."

Buddha said. If you miss this opportunity of a human birth, when and in what world will you follow the supreme path, the ultimate state of non-birth and non-death? This is all I want to say.

To say this, I sing a clumsy 'song' and recite an immature 'poem'. Now, as I welcome the year 4301 of The era of Dangun, I humbly pray to practice with fellows who have been with me for 500 lifetimes, and I make this booklet my invitation.