Drawing by Ansgar Holmberg

Verses

I just remain in spontaneous harmony.
Not grasping or rejecting,
nothing left to assert or oppose.
What use are fancy titles
and expensive clothes of vermilion and purple?
This entire mountain is free
of even a speck of dust.
Supernatural powers and miraculous activity:
fetching water and carrying firewood

Not willing to let go of grasping and rejecting,
In vain you labor studying the spiritual path.
You read the prescription but you don’t take the medicine-
How can you be free from your sickness?
Grasp “emptiness” and it turns out to be form;
Grasping form it soon proves impermanent.
Form and emptiness – neither are my possessions;
Sitting erect, I see my native home.

The past is already past-
Don’t try to regain it.
The present doesn’t stay-
Don’t try to grasp it over and over.
The future isn’t here yet-
Don’t ponder it beforehand.
When the three times are revealed as non-existent,
mind is the same as awakened nature.
To quietly function relying on emptiness-
This is manifesting profound action.
Not even the least phenomena really exists-
Whatever comes to the eye, leave it be.
No rules to be kept, no filth to be cleaned;
With empty mind truly revealed,
All things no longer have birth or death.
When you are like this
The ultimate achievement is finished.

No-greed surpasses charity.
No-delusion surpasses concentration.
No-ill will surpasses morality.
No-self-centered thinking surpasses cultivating connections.
I follow an ordinary person’s affairs,
and at night sleep at ease.
In winter I use the fireplace
with the fire that’s free of smoke.
I neither fear the dark spirit of misfortune,
nor seek after her sister good luck.
Trusting in the flow, what’s needed comes.
We all ride together in the boat of wisdom –
if you have this understanding,
your merit has no bounds.

When the mind’s left as is,
the spirit is naturally empty.
Without a need for medicine,
ills disperse of themselves.
When ills disperse,
the jewel in the lotus appears.
Don’t worry over affairs,
don’t rush around!
The wise, seeing wealth and craving,
know them to be empty illusions.
Food and clothes sustain body and life,
but only for awhile.-
I advise you to learn being as is.
When it’s time I move my hermitage and go,
and there’s nothing left behind.

Based on translations by Ruth Fuller Sasaki, Yoshitaka Iriya, and Dana Fraser, (with reference to Cheng-Chien Bhikshu [Mario Poceski]) of the records of Layman Pang, originally in the Ancestral Hall Collection (of 952) and the Jingde Era Transmission of the Lamp (of 1004).

Study the Teachings.

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