A new translation of "Hsin Hsin Ming" the classic poem by the Third Patriarch of Zen, Seng Ts'a

Chien-chih Seng-ts'an, Third Chinese Patriarch, 496?-606

Hae Kwang, Zen Master (Lombardo, Stanley) tr.

Biblioteca Digital de les Illes Balears

Likes and dislikes
Are the mind's disease.
Without understanding the deep meaning
You cannot still your thoughts.
The Great Way is not difficult,
Just don't pick and choose.
If you cut off all likes or dislikes
Everything is clear like space.
Make the slightest distinction
And heaven and earth are set apart.
If you wish to see the truth,
Don't think for or against.
It is clear like space,
Nothing missing, nothing extra.
Ifyou want something
You cannot see things as they are.
Outside, don't get tangled in things.
Inside, don't get lost in emptiness.
Be still and become One
And all opposites disappear.
If you stop moving to become still,
This stillness always moves.
If you hold on to opposites,
How can you know One?
Ifyou don't understand One,
This and that cannot function.
Denied, the world asserts itself.
Pursued, emptiness is lost.
8 PRIMARY POINT Winter/Spring 1998
,
A new translation o/"Hsin Hsin Ming.
" the classic poem
by the Third Patriarch ofZen, Seng Ts'an
Translated by Stanley Lombardo, jDPSN,
Kamas Zen Center
The more you think and talk,
The more you lose the Way.
Cut off all thinking
And pass freely anywhere.
Clinging, they go too far,
Sure to take a wrong turn,
Just let it be! In the end,
Nothing goes, nothing stays.
Return to the root and understand.
Chase appearances and lose the source.
One moment of enlightenment
Illumines the emptiness before you.
Follow nature and become one with the Way,
Free and easy and undisturbed.
Tied by your thoughts, you lose the truth,
Become heavy, dull, and unwell.
Emptiness changing into things
Is only our deluded view.
Do not seek the truth.
Only put down your opinions.
Not well, the mind is troubled.
Then why hold or reject anything?
If you want to get the One Vehicle
Do not despise the world of the senses.
Do not live in the world of opposites.
Be careful! Never go that way.
If you make right and wrong,
Your mind is lost in confusion.
When you do not despise the six senses,
That is already enlightenment.
The wise do not act.
The ignorant bind themselves.
Two comes from One,
But do not cling even to this One.
When your mind is undisturbed
The ten thousand things are without fault.
In true Dharma there is no this or that,
So why blindly chase your desires?
Using mind to stir up the mind
Is the original mistake.
No fault, no ten thousand things,
No disturbance, no mind.
No world, no one to see it.
No one to see it, no world.
Peaceful and troubled are only thinking.
Enlightenment has no likes or dislikes.
All opposites arise
From faulty views.
This becomes this because of that.
That becomes that because of this.
If you wish to understand both,
See them as originally one emptiness.
Illusions, flowers in the air­
Why try to grasp them?
Win, lose, right, wrong­
Put it all down!
In emptiness the two are the same,
And each holds the ten thousand things.
If you no longer see them as different,
How can you prefer one to another?
If the eye never sleeps,
Dreams disappear by themselves.
If the mind makes no distinctions,
The ten thousand things are one essence.
The Way is calm and wide,
Not easy, not difficult.
But small minds get lost.
Hurrying, they fall behind.
Understand this dark essence
And be free from entanglements.
See the ten thousand things as equal
And you return to your original nature.
Winter/Spring 1998 PRIMARY POINT 9
Enlightened beings everywhere
All enter this source.
This source is beyond time and space.
One moment is ten thousand years.
Even if you cannot see it,
The whole universe is before your eyes.
Infinitely small is infinitely large:
No boundaries, no differences.
Infinitely large is infinitely small:
Measurements do not matter here.
What is is the same as what is not.
What is not is the same as what is.
Where it is not like this,
Don't bother staying.
One is all,
All is one.
When you see things like this,
You do not worry about being incomplete.
Trust and Mind are not two.
Not-two is trusting the Mind.
Words and speech don't cut it,
Can't now, never could, won't ever.
Seng Tsan was the third Chinesepatriarch o/Zen, having
received transmission from Bodhidharma's successor, Hui
K'o. Thepoem attributed to him, the "Hsin Hsin Ming"
(lit., "Trust Mind Inscription"), is one ofthe earliest and
most influentialZen writings, blending together Buddhist
and Taoist teachings.
The translator, Stanley Lombardo, teaches Zen at the Kan­
sas Zen Center and Classics at the University 0/Kansas.
10 PRIMARY POINT Winter/Spring 1998
Stanley Lombardo's. translations of Hesiod's WOrks and
Days and the Tao Te Ching have been praised by critics
for their poetic immediacy and deep loyalty to the spirit
of the original. His recent translation of Homer's Iliad
(Hackett Books) has been hailed by The New York Times
as "daring," a "vivid and sometimes disarminglyhardbitten
reworking." His translation of the Third Patriarch's
"Trusting in Mind" is being published by Primary Point
Press, in conjunction with DharmaCrafts, Inc. The Pri­
mary Point interview, conducted by Ven. Hyon Gak
Sunim, follows.
What is translation?
Every time you say anything you are translating, trans­
lating some original experience into words. "Trans-late"
means "carry across." When we speak we use words to carry
across something that we perceive or intend to someone
else. This carrying across is always imperfect. We can never
completely express our experience with words. That's why
we say, "Open your mouth, already a mistake." Literary
translation is like that too, and even worse ifyou only trans­
late the words, because then you have two layers ofwords
between the original experience and the reader.
Then what does a translator do?
You have to translate the experience behind the words of
the text, the guts of the text. So my job as a translator is to
perceive the original meaning behind the words and trans­
late that, carry that over. It's just like in a kong-an inter­
view: don't be caught by the teacher's words, perceive in­
stead the teacher's mind. Then how do you bring that mind
forth and make it really clear? When I was working on the


Trusting in mind

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