Out of all Zen teaching, XIn Xin Ming – Seng Can, has been the chant that has sunken into my subconscious, slowly peeling the layers of wrong thinking away.
i know that many will want to discuss if our “light” suddenly shines through, or if it is a gradual process, as well as perhaps conflicting with”no goal” ideas.
That is above my pay grade, and perhaps this person is naive or oversimplistic.
That could very well be…. yet, what seems clear experientially is that our inner Buddha-nature (inner guide, divinity) is like a GPS, drawing the “small mind” to lose its sense of separateness, and be re-absorbed…
and this, for this person, seems to be more of a “every step reaching the other shore”, than a “waiting for something future”.
It has been more of a constant growing sense of reality than a conceptual one. (“if you would walk the highest way, do not reject the sense domain, for as it is whole and complete, the sense world is enlightenment”)
As i have not had the luxury of being a part of a physical sangha, (i am an adherant of Treeleaf Sangha) my words are not great “Zen” words and definitions… but for this person, it has been the Way, and it is not for a lack of study. i simply consider myself to be a diligent student.
Studied the Chinese version while i was in China, but truly the Chinese version is so “intertwined with early Chan”, that even my wife, who is a native Putonghua/Yueyu speaker, doesn’t understand many of the special characters. Chinese character history has so many layers, that it truly takes an expert to translate them properly… and i am not….
Affirming Faith in Mind is a translation from Japanese that is chanted in the Rochester and Toronto Zen Centres. It is approx. 10 minutes long…. Love the chant, and have a large bowl and drum for chanting. It is not the only chant, but perhaps the most absorbing for this person.
https://realityisdharma.com/2017/09/11/affirming-faith-in-mind-xin-xin-ming/
Reality is Dharma 