Song of the Jewel Mirror Awareness
Dongshan Liangji (807–869)
Translated by Philip Whalen, Tom Cabarga, and Kazuaki Tanahashi
Revised by Joan Halifax and Kazuaki Tanahashi
Dongshan Liangji (807–869), of the Tang Dynasty, wrote this poem. Dongshan became a monk in childhood and then studied extensively with teachers, including Nanquan Puyuan and Guishan Lingyou. Later he became a dharma heir of the Yunyan Tansheng, Qingyuan Line, and taught at Mount Dong, in the Rui Region (present-day Jiangxi). He is regarded as a founder of the Caodong School, one of the Five Schools of Chinese Zen. His posthumous name is Great Master Wuben.
The title of this poem is Baojing Sanmei in Chinese and Hōkyō Zammai in Japanese. The Chinese text is in the Taishō canon.
This text reflects the teaching of the “five ranks” or “five positions,” the philosophical underpinning of Caodong practice. It is frequently chanted in monasteries and groups of the Japanese Sōtō School.
♠ ♠ ♠
The dharma of thusness
is intimately conveyed by buddha ancestors.
Now you have it;
keep it well.
A silver bowl filled with snow,
a heron hiding in moonlight—
they are similar but not the same.
Side by side, you can see the difference.
The meaning is not in the words,
yet one pivotal instant can reveal it.
Move and you are trapped;
miss it, and you fall into confusion and doubt.
Turning away and touching are both wrong,
for it is like a massive fire.
To depict it with complex words
is to defile it.
In the darkest night,
dawn is not revealed.
It acts as a guide for beings.
Its use removes all suffering.
Although it is not created,
it is not beyond words.
It is like facing a jeweled mirror;
form and image behold each other.
You are not it;
yet it is you.
Like a newborn child,
who is endowed with five aspects,
no coming, no going,
no arising, no abiding.
“Baba wawa”—
is there anything said or not?
In truth, this has no meaning,
for the words are not yet clear.
Like the horizontal lines of the double “fire” hexagram,
the dual and nondual integrate.
Folded up, they make three;
the complete transformation makes five.
It is like the taste of a five-flavored herb
or like the diamond thunderbolt.
Wondrously within nonduality,
drumming and singing go together.
Penetrating the source and traveling the way,
you go through a narrow path.
Complications are auspicious;
do not resist them.
What is natural and inconceivable,
belongs neither to delusion nor enlightenment.
Causes and conditions at this moment
shine completely in the silence.
So fine, it enters nowhere;
so vast, it exceeds all bounds.
A hairbreadth deviation,
and you are out of harmony.
Through the teachings of sudden and gradual,
different methods have arisen.
Even though you master such teachings,
the truth keeps on escaping.
Sitting still, yet inwardly moving,
is like a tethered colt, a trapped rat.
The ancestors pitied
them and offered them the teachings.
According to your delusions,
black is white.
When delusions disappear,
the natural mind reveals itself.
If you want to follow the ancient path,
please observe teachers of former times.
Some try to attain the buddha way
by gazing at a tree for ten eons.
They are like a tiger with tattered ears
or a hobbled horse.
With low aspirations,
you seek jeweled pedestals and fine clothing.
With a sense of wonder,
you make a black badger a white bull.
Yi, with his archer’s skill,
could hit the mark from a hundred paces.
When arrow points meet head on,
how could it be a matter of skill?
The wooden man begins to sing,
and the stone woman gets up to dance.
This does not come by knowing,
nor does it involve ideas.
Ministers serve their lords;
children obey their guardians.
Not obeying is not filial;
failure to serve is of no help.
Practice invisibly, work intimately,
be the fool with no voice.
One who can continue this
is called a “host within the host.”
awareness: Sanmei in the title of this poem is the Chinese
transliteration of samādhi in Sanskrit, meaning “serene, settled,
and collected state of body and mind in meditation.”
thusness: rushi in Chinese and nyoze in Japanese.
five aspects: —wuxiang in Chinese and gosō in Japanese.
Aspects of action that are incomplete for an ordinary infant: rising,
abiding, coming, going, and speaking.
double “fire” hexagram: The ancient Chinese philosophy of change is known for its main
scripture Ijing (I-ching). According to its teaching, there are eight
basic situations—qia, dui, li, zhen, xun, kan, gen, and kun, which
correspond to heaven, lake, fire, thunder, ground, gorge, bound,
and field. Each of these situations is represented by a trigram—a
combination of three horizontal lines: solid, or broken into two with
space in between. For example, the third situation, li, is
represented by a broken line stacked between solid lines: A
solid line is usually related to yang, and a broken line, yin. But
Dongshan relates the former to zheng (nonduality) and the latter
to pian (duality). (See the entry for five, below.) In the philosophy
of change, the eight situations are combined two-fold, which
makes sixty-four situations, represented by sixty-four hexagrams
that are trigrams stacked one top of another. One of them,
“double fire,” is an intense situation of duality contained within
nonduality.
three: This may refer to Dongshan’s “three phrases” for guiding
students—a statement for going forward, a statement within the
gate, and one of going beyond ten billion.
five: This seems to refer to Dongshan’s “five ranks” or “five
positions”—a theory of understanding reality, which consists of
two elements: Chinese, zheng, (shō) and pian, (hen).
Zheng represents nonduality and pian represents duality.
Dongshan’s theory consists of (1) pian within zheng, (2) zheng
within pian, (3) zheng alone, (4) pian alone, and (5) zheng and
pian together.
within nonduality: See above.
five-flavored herb: —zhicai in Chinese and chisō in Japanese.
Climbing kadsura or vine.
teachings of sudden and gradual: See northern and southern
ancestors
Yi: A legendary archer who is said to have shot down nine suns,
when ten suns emerged and caused people to suffer.
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Source: terebess.hu. Image: © lovepik.com. AWIP: https://a-w-i-p.com/index.php/spiritual-matters/aV7Q