Dai An: Great Peace

source unknown

SO MANY MOMENTS of peace: Thich Nhat Hanh’s Peace Is Every Step.  If peace can’t be found “here” in every step, then no peace “there,” where we tend to look for it and try to draw it around ourselves.

With discipline, we are likely to look “here.”  Still, it can be so psychological—inside, “little peace.”  The peace of waking up, perhaps staying under the covers, an emotional response of inner calmness, and then, perhaps, non-peace, so that peace fades or even leaps away.  Then we diligently recover peace, but then stand to lose it again.  And so, back and forth, back and forth, trying to be mindful of peace.

If we are the sun, then great peace, even in disarray.  When there is no “you,” and when there is no here and there, then great flowing, permeating peace, so no longer peace and non-peace.

In reality, an enduring “you” cannot be found, and yet, an enduring essence is unhidden and natural.  

I, Me, My, You

“CONVENTIONS” OF SELF, place and time—me, mine, my, I, he, we, you, yours [pronouns and adjectives], here, there, now, present moment, later—do not express what we are.

Over and over, all day and all night, “I, we, my, you, here and there, now and later” reinforcing the illusion of separation, so it is difficult to actualize/inhabit what we are.

When the body is born, it doesn’t belong to anyone.  It is like our meditation hall ….it’s everything’s hall.

Ajahn Chah

Here in this lump of flesh there is the True man of no rank.  Constantly he goes in and out the gates of your face.  If there are any of you who don’t know this fact, then look! Look!

Chan Master Lin-chi I-hsuan

Error:
A gold Buddha does not pass through a furnace, a wood Buddha does not pass though fire, a mud Buddha does not pass through water.

 Chou-chou Ts’ung shen

Error:
What kind of Buddha can go anywhere?

Seung Sahn

                        Form=formless (so not attached to causation) & here=there

Whole World Is You

Lance Kinseth, The Whole World Is You, 48”x60, 2015

The whole world is you,

Yet you keep thinking

There is something else.

Hsueh-feng

*****

Clouds pass by,

But the vast sky is not hindered by floating clouds.

Sekito Kisen

*****

If it’s in front of me,

Why can’t I see it?

Because you have you.

So you cannot see.

Mang Gong

Listen For The Sound Of A Single Hand

Lance Kinseth, Single Hand Sound, 16”x19, 1995

CH’AN MASTER TUNG shan Liang chieh said. “ If you listen with your ears, you won’t understand.  When you hear the sound with your eyes, then you’ll know.”