眞如法界     In the higher realm of True Suchness

無他無自     There is no other, no self

要急相應     Swiftly to merge with it

唯言不二     Say only: Not two

 

不二皆同     In non-duality all is the same

無不包容     There is nothing that is not a part of it

十方智者     Sages from the ten quarters

皆入此宗     Enter into this truth

 

When duality appears through ignorance, one sees another; but when everything becomes identified with the Atman, one does not perceive another even in the least. – Adi Shankara

The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me. – Meister Eckhart

When I worship thee, O Buddha,
This is Buddha worshiping Buddha. – Saichi (Suzuki, 1957)

 

Lin-chi (Rinzai):

O you followers of the Way, if you wish to obtain an orthodox understanding of Zen, do not be deceived by others. Inwardly or outwardly, if you encounter any obstacles, knock them down right away. If you encounter the buddha, slay him. If you encounter the patriarch slay him. If you encounter the arhat or the parent or the relative, slay them all without hesitation, for this is the only way to deliverance. Do not get yourselves entangled with anything, but stand above, pass on, and be free.

As I see those so-called followers of the Way all over the country, none comes to me free and independent of dharmas. In dealing with them, I strike them down however they come. If they rely on the strength of their arms, I chop them off; if they rely on their eloquence, I silence them; if they rely on the sharpness of their eyes, I will strike them blind. Indeed, so far none have presented themselves before me all alone, completely free, completely unique; they are invariably caught by the idle tricks of the old masters.

I really have nothing to give you; all that I can do is to cure you of the diseases and deliver you from bondage. (Suzuki, 1949, pp. 347-348)

Meister Eckhart: “Sermon Seventy”

Where the soul is, there God is, and where God is, there the soul is, and if I were to say otherwise I would not be speaking truly. Now take note of a saying which I consider very fine: when I think how one He is with me, [it is] as if He had forgotten all creatures and nothing existed but I alone. Now pray for those who are entrusted to me!

Madam Guyon:

When I had lost all worldly supports, and even divine ones, I then found myself happily compelled to fall into the pure divine, and to fall into it through all those very things which seemed to remove me further from it. In losing all of the gifts with all of the support they gave me, I found the Giver. In losing the sense and perception of Thee in myself, I found Thee, O my God, to lose Thee no more in Thyself, in Thy own immutability. (Autobiography)

It was as if all smaller matters had quite disappeared, a higher power having taken and filled up their place. I even perceived no more that soul which He had formerly conducted by His crook and His staff, because now He alone appeared to me, my soul having given up its place to Him. It seemed to me as if it was wholly and altogether passed into its God, to make but one and the same thing with Him; even as a little drop of water cast into the sea receives the qualities of the sea. (Autobiography)

D. T. Suzuki:

Knowledge always implies a dichotomy, and for this reason it can never be the thing itself. We know something about it, that is, the knowable part of it, which of course is not the whole thing. As far as knowledge is concerned, it stands outside the thing, can never enter into it, but to know the thing really in the true sense of the term means to become the thing itself, to be identified with it in its totality, inwardly as well as outwardly. (1972, p. 119)

Lester Levenson: (1993)

You may see fully who you are and not be able to maintain it. What happens is that, being the infinite Self, we can get a glimpse of the infinite, hold it for awhile, and then suddenly feel as though we’ve lost it. The reason for that is that the mind has not been eliminated; the subconscious thoughts of limitation are submerged for the moment. You may go completely into your Self and let go of the mind temporarily, but you haven’t eliminated the mind: you just momentarily let go of it. So there you are, for the moment, totally the infinite Self; however, the mind that has been submerged re-emerges, and then the ego takes over and you just can’t understand what happened to you, what brought you back into the heaviness of the world again.

What is required is that we re-establish that state of the Self again and again until it becomes permanent. Each time we do it, we scorch more of the mind until finally we have scorched the entire mind–then we are permanently established in the Self. Then you sit back and the mind is out there, and the body is out there, and you are not the mind, you are not the body. As long as you know you are not the mind and the body, both of them can go on to their heart’s content and you know that they cannot touch you. (p. 19)

 

Levenson, Lester (1993). Keys to the Ultimate Freedom: Thoughts and Talks on Personal Transformation. (download pdf)

Suzuki, D. T. (1932). The Lankavatara Sutra: A Mahayana Text (Based upon the Sanskrit edition of Bunyu Nanjo). London. (http://lirs.ru/do/lanka_eng/lanka-nondiacritical.htm)

Suzuki, D. T. (1949). Essays in Zen Buddhism (First Series). New York: Grove Press.

Suzuki, D. T. (1957). Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist. London and New York: Routledge Classics. https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/d-t-suzuki-mysticism-christian-and-buddhist.pdf

Suzuki, D. T. (1972). Living By Zen. New York: Samuel Weiser, Inc. (1950)