Song of the Dao: A Guide to Enlightenment and Practice

Whenever we encounter the myriad phenomena of the world, thoughts immediately arise in the mind, along with judgments, views, and opinions about them.

Motivated by these views and opinions, we become mired in the sense that we actually possess and control the myriad phenomena, unable to free ourselves.

What we fail to realize is that all the myriad phenomena arise and pass away on their own, gathering and dispersing, changing without permanence, like flowing water and waves. They have no enduring self; they are merely illusory, temporary unions that appear for a moment.

Every view and thought in the mind likewise gathers and disperses, arises and passes away, changing without permanence. None has an enduring self.

The myriad phenomena outside are all illusions, and all things within are illusory too. Nothing can be grasped, nor can anything be cast away.

Amid all these illusions, there is originally only stillness and cessation, nothing truly existing. The outside is empty of myriad phenomena, the inside is empty of all things. Empty upon empty, abiding nowhere; within the nature of stillness, one simply lives and takes sustenance.

Clouds drift across the sky, yet the clouds in the sky are empty and still at their source, unimpeded and unobstructed, neither ceasing nor eternal. Samadhi and wisdom shine in perfect clarity, illuminating all through the ages.

All myriad thoughts and notions, all things and forms, roam freely within the nature of emptiness. The myriad phenomena appear in all their splendor within the luminous moon pearl; the pearl’s mind reveals and reflects them all. Awareness sees that all things are oneself. Once the gate of awareness opens, it creates myriad transformations, and one watches the grand play of these transformations alone.