Some Zen from Jingjue in his preface to the ‘Masters of the Lanka’:

The path to awakening
Is impossible to map.
It is lofty but has no ‘above’;
Impossible to reach its limit.

Deep but has no ‘below’;
Impossible to measure its depth.
So large it encompasses heaven and earth,
So tiny it enters where there is no gap;

This is why we call it the path.

From ‘The Spirit of Zen’ by Sam Van Schaik, Yale University Press, (2018), ISBN: 0300221452

These teachings on early Chan (Zen), ‘The Masters and Students of the Lanka’, were discovered in a sealed cave on the old Silk Road in modern Gansu, China, in the early twentieth century.

They are more than a thousand years old.

Categories: Book reviews, Buddhism, Chan / Seon / Zen