David Hinton
The Carefree-Ease Record
20
Earth-Hoard Cutting Clean
When Dharma-Eye was a traveling student, Earth-Hoard Mountain asked him: “Where are you going?”
“I’m on a pilgrimage, wandering among teachers,” replied Dharma-Eye.
“What’s the purpose of such a pilgrimage?” pressed Earth-Hoard.
“No idea.”
“No idea: that’s as close as we get, how we cut clean through to the intimate essence of it all,” observed Earth-Hoard.
Hearing that, Dharma-Eye suddenly had a great awakening.
Gatha
Glutting yourself with studies: it’s as useless now as then.
To realize no idea, strip the window of its curtains utterly:
stop cutting and stitching and fussing over long and short,
stop raising and lowering—make your own gaze the level.
Through dearth and plenty, our house exhausts wondrous
and fleeting moments. Walking fields, we walk fact alone.
Why thirty-year pilgrimages wandering among teachers?
Turn away and look deeply: that’s clear-eyed illumination!
63
Visitation-Land Asked Death
Visitation-Land asked Dice-Thrown Mountain: “After dying utterly to this world, mind exquisitely vacant, the Great Death—how is it when a person comes back to life?”
“You needn’t travel by night,” replied Dice-Thrown, “to arrive in the thrown enlightenment of morning.”
Gatha
Cities overgrown by weeds, rock timeless: mystery ends and begins,
and at the empty center of things, sight illuminates vast expanses of
emptiness. So you needn’t travel by night to arrive in dawn’s thrown
radiance. It’s just that no one trusts geese and fish to teach us Ch’an.
78
Cloud-Gate Gruel-Cake
A monk asked Cloud-Gate Mountain: “What is small-talk that surpasses Buddhas and transcends patriarchs?”
“Gruel-cake,” replied Cloud-Gate.
Gatha
Gruel-cake as the small-talk surpassing Buddhas and patriarchs:
understood clear through, that counsel is altogether flavorless.
You patchrobe monks: one day, you’ll realize your belly’s full
and know Cloud-Gate’s original-face is no other than your own.