Sunday
Vespers
Blessed One, come to my assistance
O’ Lord, make haste to help me
Glory be to the Blessed Buddha and to the Divine Dharma and to the Hallowed Sangha, both now and forever and ever. Swaha.
Come, Bless the Lord, all you supplicants of Holy Gnosis. You who reside in the house of the Noble One, in the sanctum sanctorum of the Unborn Mind.
Blessed One, be merciful to me, a transgressor of your ways. Oh Lord, create in me a mind and heart that is worthy of your Divine Precepts. I have fallen out of your favor, turn-me about O’ Lord, so that I may again rest secure in the hidden light of thy holy Countenance.
Loving mother of all Buddhas,
imageless gate of the Dharmakaya,
assist those who seek safe-haven in you.
To the bewilderment of all the composed you conceived
in the darkened womb of Bodhi a fetus so singular in nature,
Yet remained a virgin after as before.
You have received Mañjuśhrī’s Wisdom Stamp,
Arya Tara, may we be indivisible from you.
Your name is Our Lady of the Void. You alone are Holy Mother of all Buddhas and are raised on high over all spheres. O’ Spouse of the Unborn, we honor you as the Mediatrix of the Divine Mercy of the Tathāgatas. At all times we reverently proclaim you Blessed for you conceived the Holy Garbha Child of supreme auspiciousness.
Hymn to the Mystic Powers of the Buddhas (from Avatamsaka Sutra)
Even in inconceivably many billions of eons
An enlightened guide of the world is hard to meet;
The beings of this land are very fortunate
That now they can see their second Buddha.
The Buddha’s body emanates great light
With physical forms boundless and totally pure,
Filling all lands like clouds,
Everywhere extolling the Buddha’s virtues.
All illumined by the light rejoice,
Beings in distress are all relieved,
All are induced to respect and kindness:
This is the work of the Buddha’s power.
Producing inconceivable clouds of mystic displays,
Emanating networks of lights of infinite colors
Filling all lands in the ten directions:
These are manifestations of Buddha’s psychic powers:
From each hair pore appear clouds of light
Filling all space, emitting great sound:
All dark places are illumined,
Causing the pains of hells to disappear.
Buddha’s wondrous voice pervades everywhere,
Fully producing all sounds of speech,
According to the power of beings’ standing goodness:
This is a function of the Teacher’s mystic power.
Measureless, boundless, the oceans of communities:
Buddha appears within each one,
Expounding the inexhaustible truth for all of them,
Harmoniously pacifying all sentient beings.
Buddha’s mystic powers have no end,
Appearing in every single land;
Such is the Buddha’s knowledge, unimpeded:
He attains enlightenment to benefit all beings.
You should all be joyful;
Dance, delight, and pay respect.
I will go with you there:
If one sees the Buddha, all miseries will cease.
Arouse your minds to seek enlightenment,
Kindly care for all living beings,
Abide by the great vows of universal goodness,
And you’ll attain freedom like the King of Truth. Swaha.
The Dhammapada in Light of the Unborn (from 8. THE WORD):
Far Nobler than memorizing the myriad words within scripture is the all-powerful “Word” THAT initiates quietude of mind.
Far Nobler than the most exquisite command of the language is one’s astuteness in penetrating the All-Knowing Nature of the “Word”, thus permitting entrance to the gateless gate of the Ariyan Mind.
Far Nobler than weaving together inspired lines of poetic verse is one’s Faith in the Marvelously Transforming Faculty of the Unborn Word hence assuring lasting tranquility.
Far Nobler it is to master one’s Self-Essence than to celebrate victory over all falsehood, for the authentic Bodhisattvic Resolve will have indeed won the ultimate victory!
Awakening by Light (from Avatamsaka Sutra)
If any see the Truly Awake
As becoming liberated and divorced from taints
And not attached to any world,
They have not realized the eye of the Way.
If any know the Buddha’s
Substance and form have no existence,
And by cultivation gain clear understanding,
Such people will soon be Buddhas.
Who can see this world
Unstirred in mind,
And likewise Buddha’s body,
Will attain supreme knowledge.
If, regarding the Buddha and truth,
One understands that they are equal,
Having no thought of duality,
One will walk on the inconceivable plane.
If one sees the Buddha and oneself
Resting in equality,
Without abode, entering nowhere,
One will become one of the Rare.
Form and feeling have no sets:
Nor do conception, action, consciousness;
Any who can know this way
Will become great sages.
Whether mundane or transmundane views,
Having risen beyond them all
While well able to know the truth,
One will become a great illuminate.
If toward omniscience,
One engenders dedication,
Seeing mind without origination,
One will gain the greatest name.
Living beings have no birth,
Nor either any decay;
If one attains such knowledge as this,
One will realize the unexcelled way.
In one understanding infinity,
Within infinity, one:
Realizing their origin’s interdependent
One will attain to fearlessness. Swaha.
From Zen Master Ejo:
Not fearing life and death is because of not seeing oneself. Not seeing oneself means not being self-conscious, not having a self-image. The light of great wisdom is thus impersonal, so the verse says that wisdom is Buddha.
In spite of this, you think that it is a matter of loving the transitory body, which is like dew on the grass, like a floating bubble, when it comes to the great light that is your real body, you think it is an irrelevant discussion and suppose that there must be something more grandiose. Thus you waste your time talking about political conditions and the status of pious donations, without any stable practice reflecting consideration of how this idly passing life will end up.
If you have any attainment of faith or practice within this treasury of light, why would it be only your own personal liberation? Requiting the four debts above, providing sustenance for those in the three realms of being below, mountains, rivers, and earth, your own body and other’s bodies, are all the light of suchness, illuminating everywhere endlessly.
Great Master Caoshan said in a verse:
“The essence of awareness, round and bright, the body without form:
Do not force distance or closeness in knowledge and opinion.
When thoughts differ, they obscure the mystic being,
When mind diverges, it is not close to the Path.
When feelings distinguish myriad things, you sink into the objects before you;
When consciousness reflects many things, you lose the original reality.
If you understand completely what is in these lines,
Clearly, you are trouble free, as you were of yore.”
This is a direct indication, a direct explanation, within the treasury of light, which furthermore gives directions for subtle cultivation of fundamental realization. It does not matter whether you are a monk or a lay person, whether you are beginner or experienced, it makes no difference whether you are sharp or dull, or how much learning or knowledge you have. This just points directly at the formless body of the essence of awareness, round and bright, which is utterly unique and unmatched.
Since beginningless time was the Word, and the Word was with the Unborn, and the Word was the Unborn.
From the Lotus Sutra (On the One Vehicle)
The Buddha addressed Śāriputra, saying: “The Buddha Tathāgatas lead and inspire only bodhisattvas. All the acts of a buddha are always for one purpose. The buddhas manifest their wisdom and insight solely to inspire sentient beings to enlightenment.
“O Śāriputra! A Tathāgata teaches sentient beings the Dharma only through the single buddha vehicle. There is no other, neither a second nor a third.
“O Śāriputra! The true nature of all the buddhas of the ten directions is exactly like this.
“O Śāriputra! All the buddhas of the past expounded the teachings for the sake of sentient beings, using incalculable and innumerable skillful means and various explanations and illustrations. These teachings were all for the sake of the single buddha vehicle. All these sentient beings, hearing the Dharma from the buddhas, finally attained omniscience.
“O Śāriputra! All the future buddhas who will appear in the world will expound the teachings for the sake of sentient beings, using incalculable and innumerable skillful means and various explanations and illustrations. These teachings will all be for the single Buddha vehicle. All sentient beings who hear this Dharma from these buddhas will ultimately attain omniscience.
“O Śāriputra! All the Buddha Bhagavats of the present, in immeasurable hundreds of thousands of myriads of koṭis of buddha worlds of the ten directions, teach the Dharma to sentient beings using incalculable and innumerable skillful means with various explanations and illustrations to benefit many of them and cause them to feel at peace. These Dharmas are all of the single buddha vehicle. All the sentient beings who hear the Dharma from these buddhas will ultimately attain omniscience.
“O Śāriputra! These buddhas lead and inspire only bodhisattvas, because they want to teach sentient beings with the wisdom and insight of the Buddha, to enlighten sentient beings with the wisdom and insight of the Buddha, and to cause sentient beings to enter the path of the wisdom and insight of the Buddha.
“O Śāriputra! I too am now like this. Having understood the various desires and deep-rooted inclinations of sentient beings, I teach the Dharma according to their capacities through the power of skillful means, using various explanations and illustrations. Swaha.
White Lotus on blue water (by Tozen):
There is no-thing in the Unborn Mind, but its own pure light.
Though this truth shines freely with its own auspicious luminosity, there for anyone to see, vast amounts of defilements hinders the everyday worldling from perceiving this truth as self-verifiable.
Only the noble mind, that has penetrated the thin crust of the five skandhas in one firm transcendence of mind to Mind, exemplifies thus the immensity of a focused spiritual power, one needed as such by its user, as to disperse the clouds of ignorance and want of anything becomed – and from this supra-positional point of no form, or emptiness, directly look into what is its own brilliant true nature.
There is not one single sentient being, that doesn´t depend on this light, whether it comes in creating a single thought, emotion, memory or a myriad appearances of motion or stillness.
This is a mystery of mysteries, Its innermost truth even hidden to the gods themselves, as they slowly drown in the heavens of complacency and creational discomfort that comes as a karmic residue from that divided power which creates worlds and even universes.
It is one of incomprehensible depth, and way too hard for most to penetrate, recall and accept. For this reason alone, countless bodhisattvas work tirelessly, with this suprapositional light as their most trusted ally, as spiritual emissaries between the supra-mundane and mundane; as to show its singular ability to ascend the mind of the sentient being above its dark cloud of birth and death, and into the absolute reality of its true Mind’s noble wisdom that is never born or created, and hence, one not ever subject to decay and death.
Unborn Magnificat
My soul magnifies the Unborn.
And my spirit rejoices in the Buddhadharma,
For the Blessed One has anointed me;
Behold! All generations shall call me blessed,
For the Mighty Lord has bestowed His Immaculate Bodhi-Seed within me;
And hallowed is His Dharma-realm.
His mercy and compassion are conferred upon all who revere Him.
He has scattered the darkness of ignorance,
And has cast-down Mara from his throne.
He has filled the restless with peaceful repose,
And has turned the haughty-minded away in their delusions.
His Spirit enlightens the resolute in their Recollective Resolve,
Being thus mindful of His Divine-Mercy,
The promise He made to our fathers of old,
To Bodhidharma and his disciples forever.
Glory be to the Blessed Buddha and to the Divine Dharma and to the Hallowed Sangha, both now and forever and ever. Swaha.
May all the Buddhas and Dharma-Guardians bless us, protect us from all harm, and awaken us to the Light of Truth in the Unborn. Swaha.
