Category: The Jewelled Garden

All your life, never did you love the Lord; On the verge of death you expect to become a saint! When your house is ablaze, you rush to dig a Continue Reading →

I saw Light— I cannot call it darkness. A sprig of sweet basil I cannot call nettle. My heart’s door, I cannot close. Glass I cannot use to solder gold. Continue Reading →

On Believing in Mind* The Perfect Way knows no difficulties Except that it refuses to make preference: Only when freed from hate and love, It reveals itself fully and without Continue Reading →

I don’t know anything like time-beats and metre nor the arithmetic of strings and drums; I don’t know the count of iamb and dactyl. My lord of the meeting rivers, Continue Reading →

In the fourth and fifth centuries the deserts of Egypt and Palestine saw the development of a very particular monastic tradition.  Thousands of men and women wandered far into the wilderness, Continue Reading →

Within Thy Body Mira* Within your body the gong resounds In sweet strains of Eternal Song. Within your body of ten doors, Days and nights rumbles the Sound of drum. Continue Reading →

The Sixth Patriarch, Hui Neng*, addressed a gathering with the following words: Learned Audience, the Wisdom of Enlightenment (Bodhiprajna) is inherent in every one of us. It is because of Continue Reading →

I am a ruin and wisdom’s so far away; See the distance between me and the wise. My heart grows tired of the temples And the rich robes the deceiver Continue Reading →

Carpenter Shih went on  a journey, and when he got to Crooked Shaft he saw an oak standing by the village shrine.  It was broad enough to shelter several thousand Continue Reading →

The followers of the awakened Awake And day and night they watch And meditate upon their master. Forever wakeful, They mind the law. They know their brothers on the way. Continue Reading →