I’ve been typing up translations of Dharma songs today, but our office has been kind of noisy, so I used my headphones and some music to keep from getting distracted. By chance I’d selected the Lord of the Rings soundtrack, and the following track started playing as I began typing in this song. It’s a great teaching poem anyway, but try reading it slowly after the music starts!
With one mind as its foundation,
the whole of existence
has come into creation.
Buddhas and unenlightened beings
exist together,
throughout the heavens and earth,
everything is one.
Yet those ignorant of this
are seduced by outer things,
and cause their own pain
as they fall into evil paths.
Come to your senses,
before its too late and you leave your body.
Learn to travel freely on the path of mind,
where all phenomena and and action
become fragrant offerings,
become your sustenance.
Let’s all know this gateway of wisdom,
let’s all experience this gateway wisdom.
Everything is the manifestation of one mind,
and done by one mind.
Paradise is right here,
the inherent nature of men and women
is exactly the same.
Yet if you indulge in discriminations,
how will you ever understand the truth of emptiness?
Once born into this world,
people are trapped in a barless prison,
and just drug along to their deaths.
The path is blocked
by fixed ideas of “me,”
with one bound
just leap over these!!
Let’s all experience the gateway of seon,
let’s all experience the gateway of seon!
Wake Up and Laugh! 
Interesting how you perceive things, because that music for me is totally distracting and depressing. One thing I’ve been trying to understand for a long time – why the whole of existence has come into creation? It’s like a paradox, it came to existance from foundation and yet you come out ignorant and it is all suffering after. In Surangama there is a brief explanation that makes sence to me, but it still does not say why is that. Any thoughts on that? And I do not see paradise right here, although I agree with it, I cannot actually confirm with my own experience, why then One Mind cannot not manifest as all sorts of sufferings? And why beings ignorant of this One Mind, is it really their fault?
I finished the poem just as the it went into the quiet vocal piece, which worked quite well for a little post-read equipoise.
@T – As I was told once: “There are no answers to ‘why’. Only ‘how’.”
to Anders: there are answers to everything, but sometimes you have to find out them by yourself through your own efforts and experience.
I’m reading a book about the teachings of Ajahn Chah. He did say exactly the same… It was so difficult for me for a long time to understand what emptiness means.
The Lord of the Rings for me is the most wonderful movie and the music is great art.
Thank you!
Renée
“I take refuge in one-mind
the mother of heaven and earth,
the giver of life to all things.”
– 1000 Hands of Compassion
Why has the whole of existence has come into creation? I don’t know. Nobody knows. But I know, in my bones as it were, that it is for a purpose and that there is something that created it and flows through it and which is available to us constantly.
Of course we can call it Buddha-nature or one-mind. Or Tao. I love the Christian perspective on it, they call it God and see this creation as gift – something to rejoice in, and the world in which to carry out love and grace. I love that.
The fact is, it is a gift. The fact we have this life is wonderful. (Perhaps not very Buddhist of me, but there you go). We’ll never know why we are here, but we can live with gratitude, and learn to find that thing, within us all and all creation, that links us and supports us and loves us.