winter: friday the 13 mar 09

From Zhi Dun (314-366), one of China's first Buddhist monks, to his disciples:

Be diligent, be diligent!
Perfect Dao is endless.
How could it be obstructed?

A human lifetime, one generation
Is but a dewdrop falling.
My self is not mine, not me,
And yet-who fashioned it to be?

Withdrawn to threefold concealment,
cleanse yourself from the six ailments,
dissolve the five skandhas into emptiness and oneness,
and merge the four limbs with the void.

Again darken knowledge
and, freely yielding to currents,
move along with all beings.