There are several ways to study Chan and learn the Way,
The key lies in the person's ability to choose the superior.
Don't just forget form and deaden the mind,
This is a hard-to-cure, deepest sickness.
You must directly sit and investigate, probe the source,
This path has been transmitted throughout the world, ancient and modern.
Sit upright, steadfast like Mount Tai,
Majestic, don't just guard emptiness and idleness.
You must directly raise the sharpness that splits a hair,
To dissect the First Meaning come from the West.
Widen your eyes and raise your brows,
Repeatedly look: who is this 'he'?
It's like catching a thief, you must see the loot,
Fear not the thief's principle hides deep.
With wisdom, capture it in an instant;
Without wisdom, for years you won't see its shadow.
Deeply sighing at dull sitting, often like death,
For millennia, it's only been like this.
If you take this kind as Chan school,
The flower-holding smile loses the family style.
Sitting beneath Black Mountain, dead water soaks you,
The vast earth boundless, how to restrain?
If you are a man with iron eyes and bronze pupils,
Grasping your own mind-heart, you can judge for yourself.
You must persist until awakening is the deadline,
Then roar once, a lion's cub.
Don't you see the parable of polishing a brick to make a mirror has a reason?
The cart doesn't move because you're hitting the ox.
And don't you see the clear water before the cliff, ten thousand fathoms deep,
Deeply silent, utterly without sound?
One day fish and dragons come to stir it,
Waves churn and surge, truly worthy of weight.
For example, if you sit quietly without applying effort,
In what year will you pass the exam and realize mind's emptiness?
Quick, get to work! Look with high vision!
Surely in this life you'll accomplish it.
If you remain silent and indulgent like a fool,
I know you haven't yet understood how to do the work.
Rouse your spirit, look with intent,
Formless, shadowless, awakening isn't hard.
This is the true intent, ten parts complete,
The brave husband must remember it.
Never listen to those who say you need not investigate,
The ancient sages diligently serve as our guide.
Although it's like an old pavilion, idle fields,
Once you win it, have you obtained it or not?
You must recognize the unmoving honored one in sitting meditation,
Wind moves, grass bends—all is discussed.
And now the four seas are clear as a mirror,
Every single thing is what I hear.
Long, short, square, round—only you yourself know,
From the start, not a hair's breadth has ever shifted.
If you ask what sitting meditation accomplishes in the end,
The sun rises in the east, night falls in the west.