FAITH MIND INSCRIPTION By The Third Chan Patriarch Sengcan (d.606 A.C.E.

)
Translated by Matthew P. Sieradski, 2006 (rev. 2008)

Not to recognize the profound meaning Is futile labor and conceptual stillness As complete as the great void Nothing lacking, nothing extra Truly it is acceptance and rejection That obscures suchness Do not pursue association Do not reside in heartless emptiness In the oneness of a peaceful heart [Delusion] vanishes in self-exhaustion If you stop motion to return to stillness Stillness even more lls with movement

You will merely stagnate in dualism Rather than realize oneness When oneness is not penetrated In two ways loss results To deny existence is to sink into existence And to espouse emptiness is to turn from emptiness Many words and many thoughts Revolve unresponsively

You must instantaneously invert the illumination Denitively surpassing the emptiness before you Changes in the emptiness before you All [appear real] due to absurd viewpoints You neednt seek the Truth But must only cease having viewpoints In dualism do not reside Cautiously do not pursue seeking As soon as there is being and non-being In confusion mind is lost The two due to the one exist But in the one also do not abide

The Great Way is not difcult Just dislike picking and choosing Merely dont hate or love And it is thoroughly bright and clear One thousandth of a millimeter difference And heaven and earth are set apart If you want it to appear before you Do not cherish following or resisting To separate consent and contention Is the disease of the mind

Sever words and sever thoughts And you are nowhere obstructed Return to the origin and achieve the meaning Follow reections and lose the purpose

 When the one mind is unborn The myriad phenomena are without blame Without blame, no phenomena Unborn, no mind The subject follows as the object is extinguished

And together they contain the ten thousand things Not seeing sanctity or vulgarity How can there be prejudice? The Great Way is spacious and relaxed Nothing is easy, nothing is difcult Small views are wary and doubtful

They rashly attach themselves And misappropriate mind by the use of mind Is this not the greatest blunder? Confusion gives birth to quiet and chaos Awakening is void of likes and dislikes

Be free and easy, cut short irritation Thoughts tied up are opposed to Truth

They sink into confusion and are unsound Unsound, they weary the spirit What use then is holding dear or being aloof? If you desire to attain to the one vehicle Do not be averse to the six senses Having no aversion to the six senses Is moreover identical with right awakening The wise do nothing

The object pursues as the subject is submerged The object is an object for the subject The subject is a subject for the object Aspire to realize that the two fragments Are fundamentally the one void The one void is the same as the two

All dualism Is ridiculous selfreection Illusionary owers in the sky Why bother with grasping? Gain and loss, right and wrong

The more in a hurry the slower they go Attachment has no limit It is the sure path to evil Let go and be natural And realize what neither departs nor abides Mind what is natural to accord with the Way

The foolish bind themselves While in the Dharma there is no separation

Discard them once and for all! If an eye never sleeps

 All dreams by themselves cease If the mind is undifferentiated The ten thousand things are of one suchness Realize the profundity of one suchness Resolutely forget entanglements See the ten thousand things as equal Return again to the natural state Putting an end to causation Is the incomparable method Movement at rest is no movement Rest in motion is no rest The two thus not being established

What one is this? Investigate to the end the ultimate limit Not bound by paths or rules Dedicate the mind to evenness and equality In which doing altogether ceases Wariness and doubtfulness are exhausted and puried And the right faith is adjusted straight Nothing remains Nothing need be remembered Void, lucid, and selfilluminating Free from mental or physical effort Immeasurable and uninhabitable by thought

For knowing and feeling it is difcult to surmise Within the scope of the Dharma of true suchness There is no other, there is no self For swift identication, in response It can only be said, not two In being not two, all is the same Nothing is not within it contained Throughout the ten directions, the wise All enter this lineage This lineage is beyond hurry or delay One thought is ten thousand years What neither is nor is not

Throughout the ten directions, see right before you The extremely small is the same as the large

Forget absolutely borders or boundaries The extremely large is the same as the small With no sight of sides or surfaces What is, namely, is what is not What is not, namely, is what is What appears different than this You must not appraise or uphold One is all All is one Simply be able to be such as this

 Why worry about lack of accomplishments? Faith Mind is not two Not two is the Mind of Faith Here all speech is abandoned For it is not of the past, future, or present