Don’t Pass Your Life in Vain
Ever since ancient times, people with the will for the Path have traveled around from region to region seeking instruction from adept Wayfinders. They truly did not let their lives in this world go by in vain. Thus they did their best to put their conditioned minds to rest and picked out teachers who genuinely possess the enlightened eye. When they encountered such teachers, they put down their baggage and stayed for as long as necessary, relying on these adept teachers to help them complete the work. When we observe the paths they followed, we see that they were real “dragons and elephants.”
Right now, if you have within you the will to proceed toward the Great Cause, you must put all your strength into concentrating your focus on it and making your concentration solid and sure. Forget about eating and sleeping, do not shrink from strenuous efforts, work hard and endure the pain. If you investigate it with your whole being, after a long time you will naturally achieve certainty and enter the Path.
This one Great Cause has been perfectly complete right within you since the beginning. It has never been lacking in you—it is in you no different than in the buddhas and enlightned teachers. You cannot directly experience it as it really is, simply because you give rise to erroneous knowledge and views, impose arbitrary separations, and occupy yourself with emotional attachments and empty falsehoods.
If you have planted the basis for a root nature that is quick and sharp, then when not a single thought is born, you will suddenly transcend all forms of being and experience perfect realization of your own inherent wondrous nature that is as it is. You will no longer give birth to any ideas of subject and object or self and others. You will empty through in great comprehension—holy and ordinary are equal, self and others are Thusness.
Being a buddha, you will no longer seek buddhahood; being present with mind, you will never again look for mind. Here there is no duality between buddha and mind—wherever you go, they appear ready-made. You no longer fall into empty falsity at any time of the day or night.
This then is walking on the ground of reality, opening up your own treasury, and bringing out the family jewels. However you activate your potential, you go beyond sectarian conventions. You penetrate through to the level where you are genuine and true and leaping with life.
As the saying goes, “A lot of falsity is not as good as a little reality.” Just let your initial aspiration for enlightenment keep its original boldness, and continue on until you penetrate all the way through—don’t worry that you will not accomplish your work on the Path.
A truly great person must completely master transcendent Great Potential and Great Functioning. When you are at peace and full of joy, you are finally drawing near to it. Do not be content with a little bit of comprehension. You must go on working hard for a long time, until you spontaneously get it. Isn’t this liberation?
Zen Letter: The Teachings of Yuanwu, Translated by J.C. Cleary and Thomas Cleary
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