Ch'an Master Tung-shan's Gatha

Dongshan bid farewell to Yunyan and asked, "After a hundred years, if someone suddenly asks whether I can describe the master's true image, how should I respond?"

Yunyan remained silent for a long time, then said, "Just this is it."

The master [Dongshan] pondered deeply.

Yunyan said, "Venerable Jia, in undertaking this matter, you must be exceedingly careful."

The master still harbored doubts. Later, while crossing a stream, he saw his reflection in the water and profoundly awakened to the earlier teaching.

He composed a verse:

Utmost caution: seek not elsewhere,

Lest you drift ten thousand miles away from it.

(Never seek Suchness outside the mind, for the deluded mind is not the true mind. If one mistakes the deluded mind for the true mind, every path toward that deluded mind only distances one further from Suchness, separated by ten thousand miles.)

Now I journey alone, yet everywhere I encounter Him.

(This self of the five aggregates now walks alone by the water's edge, yet at every point where sense faculties and objects meet, I encounter Him—He is omnipresent.)

He now is truly me, yet I today am not Him.

(He now is the true self, yet this self of the five aggregates is not Him.)

Only by understanding thus can one accord with Suchness.

(One should realize it just like this, at this very moment, to perfectly harmonize with Suchness without contradiction.)