Third Patriarch of Zen
2/20

If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for, or against, anything.

To set up what you like against what you dislike is the disease of the mind.

When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

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Third Patriarch of Zen
3/20

The Way is perfect, like vast space where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.

Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject that we do not see the true nature of things.

Live neither in the entanglements of outer things, nor in inner feelings of emptiness.

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Third Patriarch of Zen
4/20

Be serene in the oneness of things, and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.

When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity, your very effort fills you with activity.

As long as you remain in one extreme or the other, you will never know Oneness.

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Third Patriarch of Zen
5/20

Those who do not live in the single Way fail in both activity and passivity, assertion and denial.

To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality; to assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality.

The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth.

Stop talking and thinking, and there is nothing you will not be able to know.

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Third Patriarch of Zen
6/20

To return to the root is to find the meaning, but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.

At the moment of inner enlightenment, there is going beyond appearance and emptiness.

The changes that appear to occur in the empty world we call real only because of our ignorance.

Do not search for the truth; only cease to cherish opinions.

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Third Patriarch of Zen
7/20

Do not remain in the dualistic state; avoid such pursuits carefully.

If there is even a trace of this and that, of right and wrong, the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.

Although all dualities come from the One, do not be attached even to this One.

When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way, nothing in the world can offend, and when a thing can no longer offend, it ceases to exist in the old way.

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Third Patriarch of Zen
8/20

When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist.

When thought-objects vanish, the thinking-subject vanishes, as when the mind vanishes, objects vanish.

Things are objects because of the subject (mind); the mind (subject) is such because of things (objects).

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Third Patriarch of Zen
9/20

Understand the relativity of these two and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness.

In this Emptiness the two are indistinguishable and each contains, in itself, the whole world.

If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine, you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.

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