You think that you are truly in search of the Original Spirit,
but in fact you are only after the apparent satisfaction that
knowledge and esteem can give. And therefore, poor shaven
heads, you are all totally under the spell of everything that
changes and dies. Therefore Old Cheng’s words go in one
ear and out the other, without leaving a trace, just as flying
cranes leave no trace in the sky.
Bald-shaven domes, everything that you say and think
about the Original Spirit is only babbling from your
pathetic, limited minds. You give no immediate,
spontaneous response to what presents itself, but interpret
it first by means of opinions and judgments that you have
placed above yourselves.
Oh, bald-shaven smoothies, how can you expect ever to
recognize the Original Spirit in its Immediacy if you
remain as phoney as the paper dragons made for festivals?
When I was still a young chap, I wandered the world in all
directions, while I troubled myself with all kinds of studies
and exercises. I visited all kinds of confused ones who
imagined that they were enlightened and who did nothing
except mislead others with their seemingly good intentions
and hidden agendas. Then I met Him who made it possible
for me to discover that I had enveloped myself in a thick
crust of mud that was good for nothing. The result was that
all my senseless activities became clear and turned into an
effortless focusing on the Original Spirit.
25
project that I sin against the tradition and against your
spiritual standards and values, and claim that I engage in
cheap profanity. Instead of letting everything go without
wanting to hold anything back, you desperately cling to
outer appearances and to conditions that are meant to be
bridges. Because my words don’t really sink in and find a
resonance within you, I fool you by claiming that they
come from some famous rascal who has been dead for
centuries. But, alas, not even this has helped you to allow
the destructive power of these words at this very moment,
here and now, to take their due. On the contrary, you treat
them now as costly museum pieces that must be preserved
and venerated.
Bald-shaven blockheads, by clinging to futilities you
throw away your lives, and the obvious presence of the
Original Spirit escapes you. What a failure!
Bald-shaven heads, the Original Spirit doesn’t disappear
when sleep comes. Nor does it appear upon awakening
from sleep. The Original Spirit is not something that
comes and goes. It is completely independent of
everything that is subject to change or death.
If the Original Spirit were really the only thing that
interested you, then you would consider everything that
changes and disappears as the whirling of a dancing
Dervish. And the only thing that would remain, is the
real seeking within you for that which never changes or
dies. Once you have found That, then none of the
thousand worlds of body-thinking-feeling can separate
you from it for a single moment.
24
One day everything collapsed into Awakening.
I, Old Cheng, do not have any philosophy, do not profess
any belief, do not follow any school system or tradition, am
noone’s follower and imitate no-one. In my Real Nature I
know nothing, possess nothing and am nothing, because in
my Real Nature there is no Old Cheng. What I say here
does not come out of things that I have learned. And as far
as my daily life is concerned, those things that I partake in
just flow by themselves. I don’t occupy myself even with
the Original Spirit. The Original Spirit is absolutely no
longer my business or bother.
Bald-shaven heads, I have kept nothing hidden from you.
What kind of interest could your small limited minds
actually muster for this? To your individual, petty minds
this is no more that senseless chatter!”
26
Forty-four years
I have decorated the sky with stars.
Now I jump through it.
Everything is falling apart.
Dogen
ISBN: 9789089320322
Language: English
Number of pages 54
The Master Cheng books are
also available in Dutch!
Chapter 1 from Meester Cheng part I:
With that, Old Cheng leaves the large monastery hall
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