Perfect Penetration of the Six Sense Faculties

Rising at dawn to sit in meditation: drum sounds, wind sounds, chanting sounds, birdsong—each sound enters the ear, yet the mind is cut off from the dusty world, without a ripple. Thoughts arise again in the mind—world, nation, sentient beings, spreading the Dharma and delivering the multitude—each matter surfaces, yet the mind is detached from all marks, not even a small wave stirring. 

Worldly affairs of people—frogs croaking, cicadas droning, ants battling, bees contending—merit but a smile from others; apart from death there is no great matter. Yet even birth and death is no great matter: bubbles arising and bursting, all empty illusion. As for supramundane matters—liberation from the multitude of sufferings, spreading the Dharma to benefit beings—one must not take them too seriously; they are all matters within a dream. Fame and gain, praise and blame, acclaim and ridicule, vows and responsibilities—nothing but empty marks.

All sounds are like footsteps echoing in an empty valley—grasp none of them; all forms and marks are like mirages—attach to none of them; all affairs and principles are like a tortoise's hair or a rabbit's horns—cling to none of them. The world's coercion and enticement are all traps; the world's bustling splendor is all thorns. Speech, laughter, talk, silence, the raising of a hand, the moving of a foot—all such fabrications are suffering karma. When the six faculties face their objects—sounds, sights, and sensual pleasures—if one clings to even a hair's tip, it is arsenic entering the mouth. 

The eye, form, and seeing—these three are empty; the ear, sound, and hearing—these three are empty; the nose, scent, and smelling—these three are empty; the tongue, taste, and tasting—these three are empty; the body, touch, and feeling—these three are empty; the mind, dharma, and thinking—these three are empty. The capacity to empty is empty, the object emptied is empty; the mind's emptiness is also empty, and emptiness itself is empty—until not a hair can be established, not a mote of dust can be attained; not establishing is also not established, not attaining is also not attained; neither establishing nor demolishing, neither gaining nor losing—only then is this the message of having arrived home. The home has no four walls and not an inch of grass, nor even a patch of ground broad enough to stand an awl; ultimately there is not a hair or mote of dust—and not even that "not a mote"—and "not" itself is not. For one who reaches this, it is not merely the perfect penetration of the ear faculty, but of the eye faculty, the nose faculty, the tongue faculty, the body faculty—and the mind faculty too is perfectly penetrated; all six faculties are perfectly penetrated. Penetrate what? Investigate!