DHARMA SPRING Andrew Palmer

Form Is No Other Than Emptiness, Emptiness No Other Than Form

A nice hot kettle of stew. He ruins it by dropping a couple of rat turds in. It's no good pushing delicacies at a person with a full belly. Striking aside waves to look for water when the waves are water.

Forms don't hinder emptiness; emptiness is the tissue of form.
Emptiness isn't destruction of form; form is the flesh of emptiness.
Inside the Dharma gates where form and emptiness are not-two
A lame turtle with painted eyebrows stands in the evening breeze.

-from Zen Words for the Heart: Hakuin's Commentary on the Heart Sutra
(Normal Waddell, trans)



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In my most recent talk, Talking to a Rock, I referenced a talk from a few years back in which I shared the story of my journey to practice, and said I would post it here.  So here it is, dusted off and freshened up a bit, with tales of affinity for the Way via things occurring in early childhood through to adolescence and on to early adulthood, culminating with my participating in the ceremony of taking refuge, which marked the beginning of my journey with The Open Source and Pacific Zen School.

Enjoy!
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  Yunyan asked a student what they had been doing.
  "I've been talking to a rock."
  Yunyan asked, "Who spoke first, you or the rock?"
  When the student didn't reply, Yunyan said, "It was nodding to you before you even said a word."
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Nothing will do. What do you do? This is the fundamental koan, the koan that is the common denominator of the thousands of koans.

-also-

Whatever I do it just doesn't do what do I do?

-Shin'ichi Hisamatsu
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After several unsuccessful attempts at receiving advice from Vast Obscure…
   Generalissimo Cloud said, "It is a rare and difficult thing to meet with you, O Heaven! Please give me just one word!"
   Vast Obscure said, "Ach! The nourishing of the mind! Just stay in the state of non-doing and all things will transform themselves. Drop your body away, vomit out your precise powers of hearing and vision, sink yourself into the forgetting of things, become vastly merged in fluidity and darkness, unleash your mind and release your spirit until you are left like a still and silent desert, like there is no soul in you. All things throng and flourish, but each returns to its root. Each returns to its root, and yet they do not know it! Mixed and blended, in chaos and confusion—as long as they live they are never separated from it! If they knew it, they would then be separated from it! They do not ask its name, they do not spy out its character: thus do all things generate themselves!"

-from Chapter 11: "Being There and Giving Room" in Zhuangzi: The Complete Works (Brook Ziporyn, trans)
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Obstinate and mindless
Block of Stone,
Lying here
On this green moss,
Oblivious of rain and dew,
Immune to frost and snow.
How many times has this garden
Flourished and Decayed!
How often have these flowers and trees
Bloomed and Faded!
Just ask old Mr. Stone -
He remembers it all!

-Zheng Banqiao
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