Sosan’s Hsin Hsin Ming; or, The Book of Nothing

Sosan’s Hsin Hsin Ming; or, The Book of Nothing

Posted by Steve Beckow

Posted on May 14, 2023

I’m not seeking ultimate enlightenment this lifetime.  Rather, I’m helping to build Nova Earth.

Given that we’re all angels, (1) there’s really no need to seek it.

But if I were, I’d be reading Sosan’s Hsin Hsin Ming.

The fact that I’m not seeking enlightenment doesn’t mean I don’t admire what Sosan says and feel the truth of it.

Others like The Dhammapada or The Heart of the Ribhu Gita might whet my appetite. (2) But I’d follow this book to the end.

In this wonderful age of the Internet, Sosan’s is one of the best books on the path to the realization of Oneness that I can think of, freely available to us.

Sosan’s Hsin Hsin Ming (The Book of Nothing)

(https://discoveryofwhatlivingmeans.blogspot.com/2010/05/sosans-book-of-nothing-hsin-hsin-ming.html)

The Great Way is effortless

for those who live in choiceless awareness.

To choose without preference

is to be clear.

Even the slightest personal preference

and your whole world becomes divided.

To perceive reality as it is

is to live with an open mind.

______________________________

When the lens you look through

reflects your personal bias,

your view of reality is clouded.

Truth simply is.

The clouded mind cannot know it.

______________________________

The Great Way is empty –

like a vast sky.

Silence the busy mind

and know this perfection.

______________________________

Be seduced neither by the outer world

nor by your inner emptiness.

Reside in the oneness of things

where distinctions are meaningless.

_____________________________

Trying to still the mind

inhibits the experience of oneness,

for the very action of trying

is the busy mind at work.

Live in the Great Way

where action is stillness and silence pervades.

_____________________________

Deny the reality of things

and miss true nature.

Assert that emptiness exists

and it will disappear.

_____________________________

To experience reality,

stop using words,

for the more you talk about things

the farther away from the truth you stray.

_____________________________

Return to oneness and discover its essence.

Being dazzled by appearance

you miss the truth.

Go beyond both appearance and emptiness

and find the unmoving center.

_____________________________

Duality appears in minutest traces,

carefully avoid the trap.

Pursue the confusion of your opinions

and the eternal mind is lost.

_____________________________

Rather than focus on knowing the truth

simply cease to be seduced by your opinions.

If there is even an inkling of right or wrong

the enlightened mind ceases to be.

_____________________________

Everything there is comes from oneness

but oneness cannot be described.

Holding any trace of it in the mind

is to deny the essence of emptiness.

_____________________________

When the mind is still,

nothing can disturb it.

When nothing can disturb it,

reality ceases to exist in the old way.

_____________________________

When you understand the relationship

of subject and object,

thinker and thought –

and how they create each other –

you recognize that these are not two, but one.

_____________________________

Don’t strive to know particulars

when what you want to experience is one.

It is beyond the nature of the mind to perceive

the reality it cannot describe.

_____________________________

Oneness has nothing to do with hard or easy

for it is beyond every opposite.

It cannot be found, it cannot be retained.

To grasp at it is to miss it entirely.

_____________________________

Not trying to go faster or slower,

be still,

and let go.

Just let things be

for it is exactly as it should be.

_____________________________

Returning to your true nature,

spontaneity and essence are found.

This is the space that always exists

and hold all within.

_____________________________

True reality is hidden by the practice of thought

but also in the denial.

Accept the reality of not naming things

and rest in the silence of being.

The need to name, the need to distinguish

are born of a clinging fear.

Remain unattached to every thought

and know the true nature of being.

_____________________________

Use your senses to experience reality,

for they are part of your empty mind.

This empty mind takes note of all it perceives

and is guided by its sensing needs.

_____________________________

While the ignorant are bound to emotional choices –

attaching themselves to their ignorance,

the wise experience life through not reacting at all –

unswayed, uninvolved, unattached.

_____________________________

Be inattentive and mind is an irritant

with dreams that disturb reality.

Why look for trouble and distress

when awareness is so freeing?

_____________________________

High and low, good and bad –

all duality disappears,

and all dreams abate

when the inner calm is met.

_____________________________

When the mind ceases all movement,

ceases judging,

ceases conceptualizing,

the deep cool essence of suchness

becomes a way of life.

_____________________________

When all things are perceived

with an open mind,

they return to their natural way.

Without any movement, without any description,

they are an undivided part of the whole.

_____________________________

True nature is impartial,

it has no causes or rules.

With the mind in undivided unity,

wisdom is radiated.

_____________________________

Trust in true nature,

keep your heart strong.

Pure mind is pure wisdom,

to part from it is foolish.

_____________________________

When there is neither “self” nor “other,”

awareness simply is.

All is empty,

all is clear,

no effort is made for none is needed.

_____________________________

Meet doubt directly

with the words “not two”

and know that nothing can be separate

and all is one.

_____________________________

There is nothing that is not included:

This is an eternal truth.

The very small and the very large are equal,

boundaries and limits do not exist.

Absolute reality is beyond time and space,

being and non-being both exist,

for whether you see it or not

is of no consequence.

_____________________________

Empty and infinite

existing as one,

opening before your eyes,

A vast presence.

_____________________________

One thing is all things, and all things are one.

What is and what is not are equals.

Once this is realized

there is no need to worry about anything.

To live and to trust in the non-dual mind

is to move with true freedom,

to live without anxiety,

upon the Great Way.

_____________________________

Language contains no way to describe

the ultimate unity of suchness:

Beyond belief, beyond expression,

beyond space, beyond time.

(END OF BOOK)

_____________________________

Thank you to Andrew McMeels Publishing and translators Philip Dunn and Peter Jourdan for publishing and translating this book.

Footnotes

(1) See An Explosion in the Meaning of Humanness at https://goldenageofgaia.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/An-Explosion-in-the-Meaning-of-Humanness-12.pdf

(2) Acharya Buddharakkhita, trans., The Dhammapada. The Buddha’s Path of Wisdom at https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.intro.budd.html

Franklin Jones (Bubba Free John), ed. The Heart of the Ribhu Gita. Los Angeles: Dawn Horse Press, n.d.

Now that I’ve gotten started, let me add other books to this library to take to a desert island. The translations given are my choices as the best:

Thomas Byrom, trans. Heart of Awareness. A Translation of the Ashtavakra Gita. Boston and Shaftesbury: Shambala, 1990.

A.F. Price and Wong Mou-Lam, trans. The Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of Hui Neng. Berkeley: Shamballa, 1969.

Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood, trans., Bhagavad-Gita. The Song of God. New York and Scarborough: New American Library, 1972; c1944.

Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher lsherwood, Shankara’s Crest-Jewel of Discrimination. Hollywood: Vedanta Press, 1975; c1947.

Lao Tzu, The Way of Life. The Tao Te Ching. trans. R.B. Blakney. New York, etc.: Avon, 1975.

Lao Tzu, Hua Hu Ching.The Unknown Teachings of Lao Tzu. trans. Brian Walker. San Francisco: Harper, 1992.

Swami Nikhilananda, trans., The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (Abridged). New York: Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Center, 1980; c1942.

Steve Beckow

• https://goldenageofgaia.com/