Hsin-hsin Ming:
Verses on the Faith-Mind

By Seng-ts'an, Third Chinese Patriarch

Translated by Richard B. Clarke

---

The Great Way is not difficult
for those not attached to preferences.
When neither love nor hate arises,
all is clear and undisguised.
Separate by the smallest amount, however,
and you are as far from it as heaven is from earth.

If you wish to know the truth,
then hold to no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.

When the fundamental nature of things is not recognized
the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.
The Way is perfect as vast space is perfect,
where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.

Indeed, it is due to our grasping and rejecting
that we do not know the true nature of things.
Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
nor in ideas or feelings of emptiness.
Be serene and at one with things
and erroneous views will disappear by themselves.

When you try to stop activity to achieve quietude,
your very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain attached to one extreme or another
you will never know Oneness.
Those who do not live in the Single Way
cannot be free in either activity or quietude, in assertion or denial.

Deny the reality of things
and you miss their reality;
assert the emptiness of things
and you miss their reality.
The more you talk and think about it
the further you wander from the truth.
So cease attachment to talking and thinking,
and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

To return to the root is to find the essence,
but to pursue appearances or "enlightenment" is to miss the source.
To awaken even for a moment
is to go beyond appearance and emptiness.

Changes that seem to occur in the empty world
we make real only because of our ignorance.

Do not seek for the truth;
Only cease to cherish opinions.

Do not remain in a dualistic state;
avoid such easy habits carefully.
If you attach even to a trace
of this and that, of right and wrong,
the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.
Although all dualities arise from the One,
do not be attached even to ideas of this One.

When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,
there is no objection to anything in the world;
and when there is no objection to anything,
things cease to be— in the old way.
When no discriminating attachment arises,
the old mind ceases to exist.
Let go of things as separate existences
and mind too vanishes.
Likewise when the thinking subject vanishes
so too do the objects created by mind.

The arising of other gives rise to self;
giving rise to self generates others.
Know these seeming two as facets
of the One Fundamental Reality.
In this Emptiness, these two are really one—
and each contains all phenomena.
If not comparing, nor attached to "refined" and "vulgar"—
you will not fall into judgment and opinion.

The Great Way is embracing and spacious—
to live in it is neither easy nor difficult.
Those who rely on limited views are fearful and irresolute:
The faster they hurry, the slower they go.
To have a narrow mind,
and to be attached to getting enlightenment
is to lose one's center and go astray.
When one is free from attachment,
all things are as they are,
and there is neither coming nor going.

When in harmony with the nature of things, your own fundamental nature,
and you will walk freely and undisturbed.
However, when mind is in bondage, the truth is hidden,
and everything is murky and unclear,
and the burdensome practice of judging
brings annoyance and weariness.
What benefit can be derived
from attachment to distinctions and separations?

If you wish to move in the One Way,
do not dislike the worlds of senses and ideas.
Indeed, to embrace them fully
is identical with true Enlightenment.
The wise person attaches to no goals
but the foolish person fetters himself or herself.
There is one Dharma, without differentiation.
Distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant.
To seek Mind with the discriminating mind
is the greatest of mistakes.

Rest and unrest derive from illusion;
with enlightenment, attachment to liking and disliking ceases.
All dualities come from ignorant inference.
They are like dreams, phantoms, hallucinations—
it is foolish to try to grasp them.
Gain and loss, right and wrong; finally abandon all such thoughts at once.

If the eye never sleeps,
all dreams will naturally cease.
If the mind makes no discriminations,
the ten thousand things
are as they are, of single essence.
To realize the mystery of this One-essence
is to be released from all entanglements.
When all things are seen without differentiation,
the One Self-essence is everywhere revealed.
No comparisons or analogies are possible
in this causeless, relationless state of just this One.

When movement stops, there is no movement—
and when no movement, there is no stopping.
When such dualities cease to exist
Oneness itself cannot exist.
To this ultimate state
no law or description applies.

For the Realized mind at one with the Way
all self-centered striving ceases.
Doubts and irresolutions vanish
and the Truth is confirmed in you.
With a single stroke you are freed from bondage;
nothing clings to you and you hold to nothing.
All is empty, clear, self-illuminating,
with no need to exert the mind.
Here, thinking, feeling, understanding, and imagination
are of no value.
In this world "as it really is"
there is neither self nor other-than-self.

To know this Reality directly
is possible only through practicing non-duality.
When you live this non-separation,
all things manifest the One, and nothing is excluded.
Whoever comes to enlightenment, no matter when or where,
Realizes personally this fundamental Source.

This Dharma-truth has nothing to do with big or small, with time and space.
Here a single thought is as ten thousand years.
Not here, not there—
but everywhere always right before your eyes.
Infinitely large and infinitely small: no difference,
for definitions are irrelevant
and no boundaries can be discerned.
So likewise with "existence" and "non-existence."

Don't waste your time in arguments and discussion
attempting to grasp the ungraspable.

Each thing reveals the One,
the One manifests as all things.
To live in this Realization
is not to worry about perfection or non-perfection.
To put your trust in the Heart-Mind is to live without separation,
and in this non-duality you are one with your Life-Source.

Words! Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is no yesterday,

no tomorrow

no today.

---

How this Web Page Came to Be

---

When I was living in the Arica house on Wyoming Road in Potomac, Maryland, in 1975 and 1976, Dr. Richard B. Clarke, the translator of this masterpiece, was one of our overnight guests. At that time he was affiliated with the Rochester Zen Center. He gave me a copy of his translation as published in 1973 by the Coach House Press in Toronto.

Ever since then, I have treasured that little booklet. About 1995 a friend of mine who was then living in Brazil wrote me that she was interested in Zen. At that time I had misplaced the booklet, but remembered that Ram Dass gave a wonderful reading of it on his album "Love Serve Remember," which I had taped onto a cassette. I transcribed it from the tape for her and subsequently compared it with the booklet when I found it again.

Later, I found the same translation in a small book edited by Jack Kornfield, Teachings of the Buddha (Shambhala Publications, 1993), citing Verses on the Faith Mind (White Pine Press, P.O. Box 236, Buffalo, NY 14201, 1984).

Eventually, the Rochester Zen Center kindly sent me at no cost an original copy of the magazine where Dr. Clarke's wonderful translation was originally published, "Zen Bow," Vol. 1, No. 2, February 1968. That typewriter-generated issue started this way:

The Rochester Zen Center wrote me that "It's fine by us for you to include 'Affirming Faith in Mind' on your Web site...." However, the center added that they preferred that I use "the current version." What they call the current version is what they "chant regularly at the Rochester Zen Center." They sent me a copy of pages 16-22 from "Rochester Zen Center's Chant Book Copyright Rochester Zen Center 1990."

I have studied that version carefully, and while it may be preferred for chanting, it lacks the poetry of Dr. Clarke's version. Nevertheless, I have scanned it in to my computer and the Rochester version is available here.

Therefore, I still needed to obtain Dr. Clarke's permission to use his translation. The Rochester Zen Center, however, wrote he that they have "had no contact with him for many years." With the help of my PhoneDisc CD-ROM I found all the people in New England named Richard B. Clarke and started calling around.

Finally, I reached him in Amherst, Massachusetts, where he is the director and resident teacher at the Living Dharma Center (P.O. Box 304, Amherst, MA 01004), phone (413) 259-1611, e-mail rbczenlp@ix.netcom.com. He remembered visiting the Arica house on Wyoming Road and gave me permission to include his translation here.

In June 1994 White Pine Press published an earlier translation of the Hsin-hsin Ming by Dr. Clarke in A Drifting Boat : An Anthology of Chinese Zen Poetry, edited by Jerome P. Seaton and Dennis Maloney. He subsequently updated his translation, which White Pine Press published in June 2001. You can obtain a beautifully printed copy of this translation by sending $4 to White Pine Press, P.O. Box 236, Buffalo, NY 14201. You may also order by phone at (716) 627-4665 using your MasterCard or Visa. Shipping is included.

• Subsequently, Jim Gatt brought to my attention a wonderful book by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh that illuminates the wisdom of "The Great Way." Rajneesh spoke on the sutras of Sosan (as he calls the Third Chinese patriarch, using his name in Japanese) at his ashram in Poona, India, on 10 days in October 1974. Throughout he follows Dr. Clarke's translation, albeit without crediting him. Published in 1975 in Poona by the Rajneesh Foundation, the book is Neither This Nor That: Discourses on Sosan.

• Another commentary on the Hsin-hsin Ming, this one also following Dr. Clarke's translation but giving him due credit, is by the American Zen teacher, Dennis Genpo Merzel, titled The Eye Never Sleeps: Striking to the Heart of Zen. Published in Boston by Shambhala Publications in 1991, this marvelous little paperback book (141 pages) is based on 14 of his talks in Holland and England illuminating the sections of the Hsin-hsin Ming.

• Master Sheng-Yen offers "a new translation which is largely similar to previous ones; however, portion of it are quite different, reflecting my own understanding of the poem." He uses this "as a taking-off point to inspire the practitioner and deal with certain issues that arise during the course of practice." His 139-page paperback book, Faith in Mind: A Guide to Ch'an Practice, published in 1987 by Dharma Drum Publications in Elmhurst, New York, consists of 20 chapters based on translated lectures at four retreats in 1984 and 1985.

• Still later, Tamra brought to my attention an earlier translation by R.H. Blyth. While most of the words are different from Dr. Clarke's translation, the same thoughts come shining through. I include the R.H. Blyth translation here. You can also read Blyth's translation and his commentary on the Hsin-hsin Ming at http://home.att.net/~paul.dowling/archive/zen/blyth/blyth-all.htm.

• Recently, George Burnett brought to my attention D.T. Suzuki's translation of the Hsin-hsin Ming. This 1949 translation is the first into English. I include the Suzuki translation here. Or you can read the translation and commentary Manual of Zen Buddhism: IV: From the Chinese Zen Masters.

• After Suzuki, the second English translation was Arthur Waley's, published in 1954. I include the Waley translation here.

• Then, the third English translation was that of Lu K'uan Yü (Charles Luk). Rider & Company, London, published it in 1971 in his book Practical Buddhism. I refer here to the first U.S. edition, published in 1973 by The Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, Illinois.

• Another translation, this one by Burton Watson, entitled "On Trust in the Mind," appears in Entering the Stream: An Introduction to the Buddha and His Teachings compiled and edited by Samuel Bercholz and Sherab Chödzin Kohn (Boston: Shambhala, 1993), pp. 147-152.

• Nelson Foster and Jack Shoemaker, editors of The Roaring Stream: A New Zen Reader, include yet another translation, this one by Nelson Foster and entitled "Relying on Mind," in their book (Hopewell, N.J.: The Ecco Press, 1996), pp. 10-15.

• Perhaps the best resource on the Internet about the Hsin-hsin Ming is a scholarly article and new translation by Professor Dusan Pajin of Belgrade Art University, Yugoslavia. His article, "On Faith in Mind - Hsin Hsin Ming and Early Ch'an," Proceedings of the XXII International Congress for Asian and North African Studies - Hamburg; in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft, Supplement IX, Stuttgart 1992, p. 344, and on Professor Pajin's Web site at http://dekart.f.bg.ac.yu/~dpajin/text/hsin1.htm. If Professor Pajin's site is down, as it sometimes is, Paul Dowling has a copy at http://home.att.net/~paul.dowling/archive/zen/pajin.htm.

• Zen Master Hae Kwang (Stanley Lombardo), who teaches Zen at the Kansas Zen Center and Classics at the University of Kansas, wrote a modern English translation—for some perhaps too modern. This new translation is online at http://www.kwanumzen.org/primarypoint/v16n1-1998-winter-GMZM-TrustingInMind.html.

• You can find yet another translation in The Poetry of Enlightenment: Poems by Ancient Ch'an Masters by Ch'an Master Sheng-Yen, Elmhurst, New YorkDharma Drum Publications, 1987, pp. 23-29.

• The most recent "translation" is probably that by Gerald Schoenewolf in The Way: According to Lao Tzu, Chuang Tzu and Seng Tsan, Fremont, California, Jain Publishing Company, 2000, pp. 133-140. Professor Schoenewolf teaches psychology and is a practicing psychoanalyst. He has also studied Taoism for more than 30 years. But he admits that he isn't fluent in Chinese, and he does not know Zen. He calls his work "a rendition rather than a translation because it is not an attempt at a literal translation, but rather a poetic rendering aimed at recapturing the tone and substance of the original." But for me it is the least satisfactory of any of the efforts to which it can be compared here. It suffers particularly in comparison with Dr. Clarke's translation, which combines great poetic beauty with technical accuracy.

• The strangest commentary is that of Dick Higgins, a polymath poet, composer, theorist, and playwright. One of the founders of the Fluxus movement, Higgins has written that, "The principle ideas we came to share, mainly through [John] Cage, were derived from Zen Buddhism, the I Ching, Erik Satie, and Marcel Duchamp." Another of Cage's students, George Brecht, an American sculptor, performance artist, and writer, was another influential artist of the Fluxus movement. Brecht translated the Hsin-hsin-ming from the Chinese in a version originally published by Editions Lebeer Hossman, Brussels & Hamburg, 1980. That translation is reproduced in The Autobiography of the Moon: A Commentary on the Hsin-hsin-ming by Dick [Richard C.] Higgins, Generator Press, Mentor, Ohio, 1991. This edition couples the Brecht translation and the Higgins commentary on facing pages. Brecht describes the Hsin-Hsin-Ming as "a succinct statement of Mahayana, and especially of Zen, belief, consisting of seventy-three unrhymed verses of eight characters each." His translation is faithful to that ideal and appears almost haiku-like. The Higgins commentary on opposite pages is, if anything, modern. For example, where Brecht translates verse 54 as:

  In the end: ultimateness,
  Not maintaining laws.

  Higgins comments:

  last call for gowanus, but
  where is it?

---

Last modified: June 28, 2008

Go back to David Mendosa's Home Page

mendosa@mendosa.com