To see that It’s All Good is easy
If you don’t care too much one way or the other.
If you don’t cling or reject or experience emotional extremes,
None of it is hidden; it is all obvious.
Stray from this the tiniest amount
And you’ve missed it by a mile.
If you want to get to the truth
Then don’t think you know what’s true and what’s false.
To decide that what you agree with is true
and what you disagree with is false
Is just delusional thinking.
When you decide you know what is true,
You’ll drive yourself crazy when confronted by “false.”
When you see that it’s all good as it is, is to see its reality.
When we cling to our beliefs, and think they are truth
and reject others because they are false,
We show our own ignorance.
Don’t mistake forms as permanent,
And remember impermanence doesn’t mean nothing matters.
Be at ease with how things go, and the dis-ease disappears by itself.
Trying to achieve the No Mind by thinking is an error.
When you all you see is difference, you miss your primary point.
Those who don’t maintain “Don’t Know Mind”
are trapped by making opposites.
Deny that a glass of water is a glass of water, you go thirsty.
Contend that a glass of water is always a glass of water
And you forget to fill it.
Thinking and talking only make opposites.
Listen and maintain ‘Don’t Know Mind” and the world is open.
Strip away the opposites, and what’s left is pure.
But start to care about appearances and achievements,
and what’s pure gets muddled.
To see this purity even for a second, goes beyond opposites.
All things are constantly changing,
and to give them any permanence is ignorance.
Don’t go searching for answers, just stop making assumptions.
It’s difficult to stop making opposites;
It’s a hard habit to break.
If “Don’t Know mind” is lost
There will only be confusion.
The 10,000 things arise from one,
But don’t think about “one” as a concept.
When you can see that it’s all good,
There’s nothing that isn’t good.
When everything is good,
old habits of making opposites is gone.
When there is “Don’t Know”
The habit of “I Know” is gone.
Let go of opposites, and even the concept of Don’t Know is gone.
When “I think” and “I know” are gone, the concepts are gone.
Thinking of “you” creates the concept of “me:”
Thinking of “I” creates a separate “you.”
“You” and “I” aren’t false or true, they’re just a part of reality.
And in this reality, they are not the same or different.
If not creating the opposites of rough or smooth,
You will see it’s all good.
“Good” is just another word for open,
And open is neither hard nor easy.
Relying even on the concept of “I know”
Is just a hindrance.
To have a closed mind that makes awake separate from any other state
Misses the point of “awake.”
To have an open mind is to be unattached.
And to see it’s all good is to be unattached.
And when you see that it’s all good is to be free.
But when you’re not free, everything is closed and confused.
And making opposites is just making things difficult,
So why bother with overthinking if that makes life difficult?
But don’t get it twisted; don’t think words and ideas are bad.
To see that they’re just a part of life as-it-is Is to see all things as they are.
Thinking there’s something more than just this
is to create more opposites that make more difficulty.
There are no opposites and creating them is just ignorance.
To be under the impression that you can think your way into awakening is the biggest problem.
Searching frantically for what’s already there creates problems.
“Just being” is enough.
Opposites come from troubled thinking.
They are as real as the stars you see when you rub your eyes.
To try to hold them is impossible.
Don’t think you are right and the other is wrong.
Don’t think there’s a hole where there isn’t one, that's just an illusion.
When you’re awake, the illusions stop on their own.
If you don’t invent differences,
The 10,000 things share the same root.
To understand this is to be freed.
When freed, the common root is everywhere.
Trying to divide the single root is like trying to divide mercury,
it can’t be done.
When all is still, it’s only still and not more than that;
There’s no need to invent movement.
When there is only light, there’s no need to invent dark.
And even the concept of light is unnecessary.
There aren’t concepts before thought.
When there’s even no concept of one root,
The concept of separate is also nonexistent.
The troubles that doubts have caused you vanish,
Leaving only unnamed reality.
When freed from these doubts, you cling to nothing.
It’s all good, and there’s no need to think about it.
When acting before thought, self and other disappear from the world
“as it is.”
To realize this, act without making opposites
When you don’t make opposites, all things are one thing.
“All” is just “all” with no exclusions
When you awaken to this,
You have realized this unity.
Reality as it is has no size or space,
And is dependent on nothing related to physical form.
Beyond and before thinking, everything is just as it is,
And you see clearly.
You see that large and small, green or yellow, now or then
Are just made by thinking, and these names are irrelevant.
If you see this irrelevance,
You also see existence and non-existence
are also just opposites created by thinking.
Second-guessing this point or arguing about it
or trying to realize it as a concept
Is to just trying to grab air.
When there are no opposites, “All” is just “all.”
in the ultimate reality there is only one thing.
When you realize the lack of opposites,
this includes the concept of perfect and imperfect being irrelevant
When you trust that It’s All Good,
You realize the true nature of reality.
There is no language before thought,
It’s all good from moment to moment.
Defining the boundary of one moment to the next is impossible.
Accept but do not settle.
Reinterpretation of Richard Clarke’s translation of Third Zen Patriarch Sencan’s verses--“Xinxin Ming”
