A Condensed Excerpt from “Living Zen” by the Robert Linssen:
The history of Zen began around 520 A.D. when Bodhidharma went to China. There he taught the essential elements to his Chinese disciple Houei-k’o, who became the princiiple interpreter of Zen. He was succeeded by Seng- Ts’an who died in 606. The details of his life are mainly unknown, but he left a remarkable poem “Hsing-hsin-ming, which is the following:
On Believing in Mind
The Perfect Way knows no difficulties
Except that is refuses to make preferences.
Only when freed from hate and love,
It reveals itself fully and without disguise.
A tenth of an inch’s difference,
And heaven and earth are set apart:
If you wish to see it before your eyes,
Have no fixed thoughts either for or against it.
To set up what you like against what you dislike-
This is the disease of the mind:
When the deep meaning (of the Way) is not understood
Peace of mind is disturbed to no purpose.
(The Way is) perfect like unto vast space,
With nothing wanting, nothing superfluous:
It is indeed due to making choice
That its suchness is lost sight of.